DWC February 2026 - Day 3 - Blur/Pompous - Jaskian
She sat at her jeweler’s station and curled the filigree with an attempt at a meditative air. Everything was sharp in her vision. Lines of gold had hard edges. Light cut through facets on gems scattered on the tabletop. Jaskian had focused hard enough that she felt a headache coming on. Still, she wasn’t entirely sure if it was Lumi’s frustration or her own that beetled her brows low.
Those pompous, short-sighted fools in Silvermoon irritated them both.
Though Jaskian was not being directly observed, and no one had interfered with her own work or research. No one set spellbreakers to check in on her workshop and artifacts. No one gave her ley-line calculations more than a first-pass. One of the Magistry that had come through had asked her about her notes, all in the shorthand she’d developed herself, but took her words at face value, flipping through to the ley-line mapping she’d done years prior. He’d looked like a toddler at a picturebook, and seemed to have the attention span to match.
When she thought about it and let herself unfocus, she was uncomfortably aware that she was a tiny bit jealous of her husband--for his ambitious reaches, for the attentions--both admirable and accusatory--from the Magistry, and for his own audacity. She loved it about him, but no one had ever called her audacious.
Taking off her loupe she set down her gemwork and focused. Luminash was in the garden again; even without their bond, she could orient to him in a mundane guess and know she’d be right. Her heart tightened and she rubbed a hand over it without thinking.
He was so certain they would find him in the right. Recuse themselves from the case he built around Renilash. Transmutations of magic accomplished in a formative and fundamentally new way than the generally accepted means. Luminash meant to shake the foundations of the universe and drop out its secrets like apples off a tree.
Jaskian blinked into the sunlight and stepped into the yard. She watched her husband with a soft, besotted look as he even weeded with magic. It was all so natural to him.
She wasn’t audacious and she wasn’t as ambitious as Luminash. But she knew what she knew, and she was subtle in ways Lumi could appreciate. And in ways other magisters, so focused on fear and failing, could not.
mentions: @luminashdawnwing
The perfect opportunity presented itself in the form of a holiday steeped in gift-giving traditions, ‘Love is in the Air.’ Naturally, she thought nothing of it as Vaelithar tucked a yellow rose behind her ear and whispered. “For you, Madame.”
The gesture was innocent… Lord Duskryn’s intentions were anything but.
For the next few days, Naralinthe’s thoughts were consumed by him. The memory of his cologne lingering in the space between them. The brush of fingertips against her ear as he tenderly placed the rose there. He inexplicably remained at the forefront of her mind as she recalled how polite, charming, and generous he was.
She felt compelled to… 'place her trust in him.'
The rose was a message— one intended for a paladin who would inevitably come knocking at her door— and as predicted, he did. Adonis B’andtherion’s scrutiny fell upon the rose with unerring suspicion as he pushed his way beyond the entryway. “Who gave that to you?” He inquired with a narrowed gaze. Was it jealousy? Possession? Or something far darker that sparked in his eyes?
“Lord Duskryn... why?”
In that moment, he was a Bull seeing RED. She was on the receiving end of that look only once before, and it frightened her. “Do you trust me to act in your best intentions, Naralinthe?” He asked through clenched teeth while extending a gauntleted hand toward her.
‘Not again,’ she thought to herself. ‘I thought we were past this.’
“Y-yes?” She stammered while slowly backing away from his plated grasp until her retreat was abruptly halted by the bar meeting her back. She had nowhere else to go. Wide-eyed as a frightened rabbit, Naralinthe clutched the counter until her knuckles turned white. “Adonis… what is happening? You are frightening me,” she whispered while squeezing her eyes closed and bracing for the crushing weight of his gauntlet.
It never came.
Instead, Adonis plucked the rose from her hair and crushed it in his palm, where it was instantly disintegrated into a handful of ash by his cleansing Light. “That man is a snake who cannot be trusted…” he announced resolutely, “…and is using you to get to me.” He frowned while gently caressing her cheek. “This… is my fault,” he sighed.
The moment the rose was destroyed, Naralinthe felt sick. Suddenly— violently— as Vaelithar’s contingent magic took hold. The spell was broken, but the Snake’s venom ensured she would suffer regardless.
Her head swam as she collapsed to the floor in a blur of confusion and terror, clutching her temples in agony.
Tension is often defined as a heightened discomfort between two opposing forces. Most seek to dispel it the moment its hollow claws scrape against the fragile veneer of peace.
Vaelithar and Adonis did not dispel tension. They cultivated it.
They sat at opposite ends of a long marbled table in a chamber reserved for the highest Houses of Silvermoon... where silk-gloved disputes were settled with courteous smiles as alliances and unions were forged over crystal decanters and candlelight.
No such civility waited here.
Documents lay scattered in deliberate disorder. Trade manifests. Cargo inventories. Each parchment bore the sigil of House Duskryn pressed in crimson wax.
Adonis B’andtherion reviewed them with methodical precision, armored finger tracing each line as if the ink might betray its master under sufficient scrutiny.
Across from him, Vaelithar Duskryn reclined, one ankle resting upon his knee, watching the Patriarch with open amusement. His eyes were narrow, reptilian in their focus.
This was not their first private audience.
House B’andtherion had never ceased its watch over House Duskryn. Vaelithar’s past associations had been… unsavory. He had corrected that perception, of course. Shaken proper hands. Spoke proper apologies. Wore humility like a borrowed cloak until the Magistrate dismissed him as a nuisance rather than a threat.
Adonis had not.
Anything bearing Duskryn’s seal that crossed the borders of Quel’thalas passed beneath the Patriarch’s gaze.
This shipment was no exception.
“How long,” Vaelithar asked lightly into the silence, “do you imagine we shall continue this dance?”
He gestured vaguely toward the paperwork.
“My ships arrive. They endure ‘random’ inspections. I am summoned with immaculate documentation. And you, my dear Lord B’andtherion, dig with tireless devotion... searching for the single crumb that justifies your suspicion.”
Adonis did not look up.
The only sound was the whisper of parchment and the faint tap of Vaelithar’s fingers against the marbled surface.
“Several shipments,” Adonis said at last, voice low and even, “have borne illegal contraband.”
The response came swift.
“None bearing my mark. I charter public vessels. I cannot account for every crate a smuggler conceals aboard them. Perhaps your talents are better spent pursuing those actually responsible.”
A faint smile curved Vaelithar’s mouth. He was prepared. He always was.
“You should know,” he continued, settling deeper into his chair, preparing the timely boast, “my affairs have prospered. Trade routes restored. Alliances renewed. Reputation… rehabilitated.”
A quiet chuckle.
“They call me the ‘Lord of the people’ in the streets. Thus, while you have remained here... steadfast and unmoving... I have adapted.”
He leaned forward slightly.
“I wanted you to know that. I want you to have every piece of the puzzle. I find it amusing to know that you will still be unable to assemble it.”
His tongue passed slowly over his teeth.
“My latest vintage now sells within a prominent brothel in Pandaria. One who's Madam is most delicious and an able partner in business and pleasure..." he grinned, letting the words linger a moment. "Horde and Alliance alike whisper of the potency of my bottles. It is… memorable.” A subtle gesture, indicating that the potency of the mix had something more than just grapes and alcohol. "They clean their pockets for it. Beg for it.... do you know what I've decided to call it?”
A pause.
“Alleria’s Kiss.”
Adonis’ finger stopped for a moment as the echo of his deceased wife lingered in his mind.
His gaze lifted slowly as Vaelithar’s smile widened. There was anger now, rumbling like an approaching thunderstorm.
“I found it fitting. We did compete for her affection, after all... I offered her stability, and yet she chose the unstable soldier. Still, she came crawling to me when you could not satisfy her." Vaelithar shuddered in his arousal, "gods... her kiss was like fire. Her touch was like poetry with a memorable apex in its rhyme... gentle at first but then ravenous with hunger and need as my teeth sank into her supple flesh." He hummed, "I always recall such memories when I pour myself a glass... now I will share those memories with the world."
The insult lingered, heavy and deliberate.
“You coin her as a whore” Adonis replied, voice calm as carved stone. “But a memory of my own lingers with those words, a memory of laying her to rest. My grief was evident but not overwhelming enough to see the infamous Lord Duskryn...on his knees, sobbing like an infant child who lost a toy he could not hold onto.”
His eyes dropped briefly to the plain gold band on Vaelithar’s finger.
“She offered you a lesson in modesty in her weakness. I see the lesson is still on you, but not heeded."
Vaelithar laughed softly and lowered his hand from sight. His eyes narrowed in a reptilian manner.
“I am not finished," he hissed, his voice losing its lightness.
“Your House decays. One son is dead. One son is assumed dead. Your daughter is a broken husk of herself. Your courtyard grows more weeds than flowers. Your walls crumble and crack in disrepair." He tsked and shook his head, "It's a sad state… but worry not. I'll be there when the last coin is spent from your pocket. I'll collect your deed. I'll raze your home to the ground. I'll dig up your dead wife and piss on her bones…" he paused, a dark, unsettling grin etching on his face, "I'll claim your daughter as mine. I'll sire offspring with her so that the B'andtherion name dies with my seed in her belly…"
He tilted his head, letting the words hang in the brief silence. Slowly, he leaned back and folded his fingers together on his chest. "I tell you this because I know, even with this information, you won't do anything. Or hardly anything. You are a rock, B'andtherion, sturdy and strong but unmoving, unwavering…"
He then gestured to himself with some flourish in his fingers, "I move with the tides of social expectation. I become what the people want me to become. When other Houses desire nothing more than to rebuild their glory, I give them station to do so… then I take from them...and I take… and take… and take… and then I consume when there is nothing left."
He hitched a breath, his eyes glinting in the light like a madman.
Then a growl rumbled from his throat, like a beast recalling the taste of fresh meat.
"And there's your Lioness…" he whispered, closing his eyes and digging through the dark caverns of his memory. "Your kitten… the one who actually managed to scale your wall and dig her claws into your unused flesh."
He sucked in his breath and turned his head away with a slightly dramatic sigh, "I'm going to take her as well. I've seen her in a way that your honor makes you avert your eyes. You may know "Lady Emberdawn," but you don't know "The Lioness" and just how wild she is…." he shuddered in delight. "Watching her depart the city with men that aren't you brings such a…" he paused, thinking of the word, "release to my loins...knowing that you cannot please her… knowing that she aches between her thighs every night but seeks out the comfort of others, knowing full well that her "Bull" likely still laments the loss of his wife…" he tilted his head, "Do you call out Alleria's name when you two share a bed? I wonder what Alleria would think seeing brave, honourable Adonis B'andtherion, who believes in tradition and simplicity, going against his belief of marital courtship just so he could feel the touch of flesh once more."
Adonis did not move.
"I'm going to take that flesh from you..." Vaelithar continued, incensed like a shark tasting blood in the water. "I'm going to make her purr for me, and I'm going to break that woman a thousand times over so that her whimpering and heated cries will be loud enough to haunt your nightmares." he rose slightly to his feet so that his words were heard clearly before he continued.
"And when she stumbles from my bed, bow-legged and lost, she won't even remember your name… no one will remember your name. It will be dust in the wind. A dead story of a broken, failure of a man." He writhed then, his form shifting and twitching in euphoria as if imagining his words as a reality.
As Vaelithar finally settled somewhat, Adonis carefully placed the sheet of paper atop the rest of the pile. He organized them as if they weren't touched and rose from his seat. He didn't say a word, nor did he act as if Vaelithar was in the room as he pushed his chair in and slowly made his way around the table.
Vaelithar settled back, threading his hands together once more and smirking as he watched Adonis come closer. It was clear that the papers were indeed true and that Lord Duskryn's cargo was indeed sound.
Thus, the performance was done. However, Vaelithar shifted as if expecting something else. His expectation was verified when Adonis stopped by his side.
The Paladin’s hand shot out, seizing a fistful of dark hair and driving Vaelithar’s face into the table.
Bone cracked. Blood splattered in arced waves across the marble.
Vaelithar felt the cartilage in his nose turn into liquid. He felt warm blood spill down his cheeks from his eyes and dribble down his jaw. His mouth hung, broken from just the first blow. His eyes began to swell shut as Adonis slammed him again... and again... and again, like a bear smashing the skull of a rat. There was no grunt of rage from the Patriarch with each blow. Just focus. Unrelenting, unyielding focus.
When Adonis finally lifted him, Light spilled from his fingertips. Flesh reknit. Bone reset. Blood evaporated.
Vaelithar’s lips curved in a fractured grin.
The next blow erased it.
Each cycle of blood and cracked bone lingered longer before Adonis' merciful light came and healed the damage that was done. Pain allowed to bloom longer and longer, thus Vaelithar suffered longer and longer with each cycle before being undone again.
At last, Adonis restored him only enough to appear intact. The exterior appeared unmarred. Vaelithar's jaw, however, hung slack and useless.
He forced Vaelithar’s gaze upward.
“The only thing that gives me pause,” Adonis said evenly, “is your ego. You, with your forked tongue, mistake stillness for weakness.”
His grip tightened.
“I gladly take the moniker of a rock. A rock does not chase a serpent. It simply crushes it.”
He released him with a shove that sent the noble sprawling to the floor.
“How will you savor your triumph,” Adonis continued, “when my hammer finally bludgeons you from existence. When you rot beneath my feet? Forgotten. Clutching a ring and a lie. You are alone, Duskryn. Coin cannot be purchased otherwise.”
The door opened and then closed, leaving Vaelithar in silence.
He lay staring at the ceiling, blood beginning at the corner of his mouth, eyes bright despite it.
A ragged whisper escaped him.
“I do enjoy… how we dance.”
He smiled and reached for the ring on his finger.
@daily-writing-challenge
mentions of @themadamelioness @susan-gampre @kelzthalasbandtherion
Keranna took a long drag off her cigarette in the smaller, secure meeting room off her main office. No comms were allowed in here, and she'd seen to the protection wards herself. They were a feat, frankly. A fine layering of spellcraft from a few different schools of magic; unlike some of her colleagues she knew better than to put all her eggs in a single arcane basket.
Agent Runeveil shuffled through the papers in the dossier he'd brought with him, "He's got a lot of debts, Ma'am. Gambles on the 'striders, among other things."
That explained some of this mess. She exhaled a plume of smoke and leaned forward a bit, "What's the status of the son's divorce?"
"It has been sitting on Magistrate Palecrown's docket for a while. One of the only ones that's been parked, court records show everything else moving along at a fair clip," Runeveil passed her the logs across the meeting table, as well as a club registry, "Mister Summerhold and the Magistrate are both members of the same fencing club."
Keranna smirked a bit and ashed her cigarette before resting it in a little porcelain tray she had thrown herself and picked up the papers so she could flip through them and review with her own eyes. The bit about the fencing club proved nothing — yet. Fiorenze had been looking for one to join, and membership could always be engineered. "This is good work," she commended, "Have you managed to get proof of the affair at all? I suppose we ought to offer Hamdil some sort of reward for being a good informant."
Agent Runeveil blushed deeply and she politely didn't laugh outright. He was only in his second year of service and it showed. Still, he passed over a small packet of photographs that she immediately opened and started leafing through. No wonder he had blushed. "So you have. We'll keep the ones that clearly show Mister Summerhold and his daughter-in-law back for future use as needed. In an hour or so I'll have a packet for you to run to…" she paused a moment to remember who presided a court above Palecrown. Going twice over would be too big a swing, one over was insult enough, "Magistrate Vy'ranir's office. Will you be free?"
He nodded, "I will, ma'am. There's also a witness willing to go on record if the ah— well, if the explicit photos aren't enough."
"Delighftul. And will you be free to attend Miss Nahilvi Summerhold's appointment in Magistrate Palecrown's court? I want eyes on who else is paying attention," Keranna didn't look back up at him as she sorted out the photos she intended to provide to Palecrown's boss. It had been a while since she'd felt this giddy; she had only started looking into Lady Goldenreaver after the other old blood noble had attempted to insult her establishment of the Meadowrun Conservatory. Now she had a corrupt judge, too, alongside Hoovanil Summerhold. Mister Summerhold was, at most, a bit player — but even small stones could shatter glass castles. These pompous fucking people.
"Yes ma'am."
She picked her cigarette back up and slipped it between her lips again before nodding, "You're free to go. Report back in an hour."
As soon as he shut the door she got to work penning her official request to Magistrate Vy'ranir. Palecrown certainly couldn't be in two places at once, and granting Hamdil a no-fault, full divorce on the same day, same time, that Nahilvi was being dragged in to prove that she owned her home in the city outright was certainly going to cause some stress.
She sealed her letter with no name, simply the wax stamp of the Magistry Intelligence office — a station well above Vy'ranir's pay-grade — and imagined what it was like to take a shillelagh to a hornet's nest.
Watching the track with a trifecta ticket in his hand and a smile upon his lips, Hoovanil appears confident. Recently, he has been winning more than losing. Listening to owners and jockeys at Eilyne’s social events gave him more than enough information to use in his betting. Marrying Lady Goldenreaver was going to help him rebuild his fortune, even without his allowance.
That word is distasteful to him, and he is certain Eilyne knows it. But when a man is dependent on another, what choice does he have but to be outwardly grateful? At least she pays all of his expenses and is not bothered by his gambling. She even finds it a gentlemanly pursuit.
“I see your luck could be turning, finally.”
A dangerously low voice sounds behind Hoovanil, making the elder Summerhold jump slightly. He bristles as the man chuckles at his reaction, the sound fading as his creditor steps back.
“My office,” the dark Sin’dorei says, turning and walking away without waiting for acknowledgment.
Hoovanil dares not make him wait, so he hurries after him. One of the guards makes a sound close to a snicker as his steps carry him across the racetrack’s main betting floor in an effort to keep up.
Even so, his loan shark is already seated and steepling his fingers before Hoovanil can take a chair. “Yes, it seems so.” He has just won a decent-sized bet, but he knows that is not what the man means. “The case is going to be adjudicated tomorrow.”
Golden eyes hold his without a word. Unsure what to say or what the man wants to hear, Hoovanil presses on. “My friend says everything is in order, and the witness is grateful that justice will be done.”
Still nothing comes from the man across from him, Hoovanil growing frustrated. “She has no leg to stand on. She has no legal defense.” He knows Nahi could fabricate evidence, as he had, but she does not seem the type. As far as he sees, she handles her financial and legal filings properly. Removing her from the equation is his safest bet, and he is always one to play the odds.
The silence that meets him makes him huffy as his patience thins. Perhaps he should admit the problem to his fiancée and let her pay off this ruffian once and for all. The deal was struck because he had no options; the engagement is an unexpected gift horse, and with Eilyne’s looks, the description is fitting.
“Really, our association no longer needs to be confrontational. Once I have the house in the city, I will sell it. Or, if you prefer, I can simply sign the title over to you. I am told that with the limited space in Silvermoon, it is worth far more than she paid for it.”
That finally draws the man’s attention. “You are forgetting the extra months of interest I have allowed you?”
Hoovanil splutters. “We had a deal. Her house for the interest on what I owe. The stipend she earned while holding the estate illegally will be enough to settle the principal.”
A dark brow arches. “That deal was set before I gave you four more months while you waited for her mother to die.”
“But… but… Who do you think you are?” Hoovanil stammers, outraged that a common criminal was attempting to extort more money from him. Standing, he places his hands on the massive desk. His creditor gestures toward the chair as though inviting him to sit again, a rough hand seizing his collar like a misbehaving child jerking him back into his seat.
Hoovanil watches as the man leans in. His suit is impeccable, the expensive cut of it speaking to his success in the underworld. “I am the person you have owed money to for years. I gave you leeway because sometimes you win, and you were landed. For over a year you have had no collateral and have not made a single payment, not even after becoming engaged and beginning to receive your allowance.” The word carries a hint of mockery. “You should be grateful I recognize that being repaid is worth more than taking the hand of some poor, landless man.”
Leaning back and steepling his fingers once more, he continues, “Be grateful I do not collect your young lover to hold in lieu of payment, at least for now. There is quite a market for beautiful Sin’dorei.”
It is the first time Banictusia is threatened in any of these dealings, and Hoovanil’s heart leaps into his throat. The enforcer who forced him back into his seat steps forward, taking a sheet of paper from his employer and placing it before Hoovanil. The soon-to-be holder of the Summerhold estate glances at the figure and lifts his chin. “This sum is ridiculous. I will not be paying it.”
“Interest compounds.”
Hoovanil flings the paper onto the desk. “I will see you ruined. You cannot treat me this way.” With an indignant huff, he storms from the office, and neither guard stops him.
The first guard speaks once he is gone. “That man grows more insufferable each day.”
“I want you to attend the court proceedings tomorrow. Keep me informed of the outcome.”
A shadow shifts behind the man at the desk, and the guard swallows before bowing his head. “Yes, sir.”
The holiday Love is in the Air felt grander this year than its usual affair. It felt like more decorations had been used, more food had been prepared, and more people were celebrating than normal.
Not that she was against such a beautiful circus. For the first time in years, she could see the beauty again in such affairs. But she wouldn't take part in herself. After all, she didn’t have anyone special in her life. But perhaps she could convince her sister to get something for her new mate, Alarisan.
Elutia smiles at the thought of her best friend and her sister after all these years, getting together. She knew her sister mourned the loss of her first mate, but she could see the love in her eyes when she looked at the man. She deserves to be happy. Elutia wishes them all the best.
She ran her hand over a ruffle of a heart that hug on a tent as she walked by. Perhaps one day she would find love again, but she wouldn’t hold her breath. For now, she would be content with just getting her life back on track and not letting the world move on without her, as the last few years had gone by in a blur of pain and poor mistakes.
She shakes the thoughts out of her head.
Focus on the here and now.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, letting her head tilt back slightly. The surrounding smells were amazing of fresh baked goods, candies, fruity drinks. Perhaps she should partake after all. Who said she had to have an admirer to do so?
After all, I still have love in my heart, even if that heart is darker than it once was. I am worth a cupcake or two. The corner of her lips curl upward and her blue eyes catch the light of the sun, making them shimmer as she moves to one of the near stalls selling bakery goods.
She holds up a finger. “One of the pink ones, please.” She points to one of the pink cupcakes. The woman moves to get her the dessert and Elutia hands her the coin required before she moves away from the stall, pulling back the paper around the bottom of her little gift to herself.
The cake all but melted in her mouth. She makes a soft groan of delight. When was the last time she had let herself have something as simple as a sweet? Too long.
She eats her sweet treat with a contented sigh and continues down the street.
The practicality of evil is a cruel calculus. There is no bargaining with it. To touch it, to entertain it even briefly, contaminates. When one gives evil permission, it takes root in the fetid soil of the soul.
For evil does not force itself, it asks for sanction. And to see the culmination of all his workings done, Tristan Black allowed evil to burrow deep into his soul.
He slid his gloved hand over the rough bark of the iron tree. “Mother,” Tristan murmured, “will you still say nothing? You must know what I mean to do. Would you not give a single word to escape my wrath?”
He waited for the golden glow of her eyes that had only ever opened for the Shadowglades. Her favored children, he thought with an ache so profound he could not breathe around it.
“Not one word to spare your children?” He whispered. “I will end them. Every last one of them,” he hissed in desperate threat.
When only the creak of her dying branches answered him, he despaired. Though Tristan was a breath away from his ambition, it was not truly what he desired. “Have I not been punished enough?”
Tristan paused to collect himself, his chest heaving. Well he remembered the last time he had done the terrible thing he was about to do. He opened his mouth to demand that she speak again, but soft footfalls stole his desire to attempt what was clearly futile.
Ahnariel had come as he’d commanded. Tristan would shelter her no longer. He couldn’t bear the soft, sad look she held in her eyes when she gazed at him. It felt like accusation. He would end this foolishness, disavow her of her soft notions and childish affection. She would know what they really were. What he was. And what he’d done.
He half turned away from her, long fingers curling around a long, narrow branch. It felt brittle, almost like it was hollow.
It would take several branches this time.
Tristan lifted the saw blade to the branch. Ahnariel made a strangled gasp.
“What are you doing to Mother?” She cried.
“I tried, you know. In the first centuries. I tried to save her,” he said, lip ticking up at the corner. “Nothing I did would open her eyes to me. And she stopped speaking a century ago. Of course…she never spoke to me. Just your…ancestors.”
The saw blade bit into the branch as he dragged it across it. Ahnariel cried and begged him to stop. He wouldn’t relent. Even when the gush of thick, dark red blood flowed from his sawing.
Tristan watched the understanding widen her eyes and drain her cheeks of color. Her lip trembled and she took a step back.
Ah, there it was. The limit of love.
“If…Mother can’t speak and doesn’t wake…” Ahnariel trailed off as the horror of her conception became plain to her.
Tristan smiled slowly and without pleasure. Blood spattered over his face as he separated the branch from the tree with a squelch and crunch of bone. “Do you love me still? Will you still call me father so sweetly?” He asked, thin amusement wrapped around his words.
He watched her mouth work silently. Her beautiful face twisted in grief and rage. She did not…or could not answer him. A tiny sliver, pain like a shard of glass, slipped into his heart. He looked at his sister with the sting of disappointment.
“I thought not,” he said smoothly.
“You’re a monster,” she whispered, tears sliding down her cheeks.
He hmm’d softly, though the sound was quickly lost to the wet sound of his sawing. “Yes,” he finally agreed. “And so are you.” Once he’d sawed through enough, he snapped the branch. The sharp crack made him flinch.
“Abomination though you surely are, you get all the gifts, don’t you?” He mused, not bothering to mask the bitterness. “Ascended form,” he spat. “Mortality.”
He grunted as he began to saw through a thicker branch. Just one more. “But not I. Trapped in pathetic flesh not even death frees me from.”
He stepped back and smeared the blood from his face. “For the crime of my birth. So yes. We are monsters. Because we come from monsters.”
He knew he had her compliance then. With sadistic pleasure, he watched her give permission to his evil words to fill her with poison. The root of all evil always begins with the self.
***
It pleased Tristan that the courier had not been beaten. He didn’t trust Dawnfire’s goons to have the wit to follow directions, so he was pleasantly surprised. He moved to stand before the bound man. He drew his fingertips along his jaw. The courier flinched, red eyes wide in revulsion and anger.
“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” Tristan asked the courier gently. He could hear Ahnarirl’s soft snuffling behind him. “You needn’t be. I’m not going to hurt you.”
He smiled down at the man but his dark gaze was unblinking and hollow. “But my generosity does have a price. I assure you…you can afford it.”
“I merely need your permission. For you to relax under my will and command. You needn’t worry about anything else. And after what needs to be done is done? You will be free with no memory of this.”
The courier lifted his chin, lips drawn back from pointed teeth. Tristan grinned. Like a mouse posturing, he thought.
“And if I refuse?” The courier said.
“Then you will have exhausted my generosity and I will slit your throat,” Tristan replied, leaning in close. So that the man could see the pleasure that fatal act would give him.
The courier had little choice. So when the icy, shadowy magic seeped into his brain, he didn’t resist. All the world melted away except for one desire.
Tristan emptied the courier’s mail bags and gathered the bloody branches and stuffed them inside. “It is remarkably difficult to get into Dracone Castle,” he said to Ahnariel as he tied the bags closed. “Any trace of us would mean immediate and painful death. But this man,” he gestured to the courier who stared ahead vacantly, “Voron Nightpath, has been bringing the mail to the Castle for many years. Why…the Dracones trust him so much that he’s allowed inside.”
“Won’t the Castle sense the…pieces of Mother?” Ahnariel asked, tone thin and reedy.
Tristan shook his head. “He is blind to her. She silences his magic. Even just these small ‘pieces’ of her.”
“Thst is how you mean to do it,” she breathed.
He inclined his head. “Yes. As I did it before. During the Scourge invasion. I had a different delivery method…but the result will be the same.”
“So…we strike after the courier delivers the branches?” Her tone was cool, logical. He even thought he heard a touch of admiration for his cleverness. But he saw no warmth in her gaze.
“It would be foolish to strike without drawing them out and taking a measure of them. Now,” Tristan said, wiping his hands in his thighs, “strip out of your pretty dress unless you wish to see it ruined. You will change your form and bear our courier closer to his destination. Then..you will draw them out.”
Ahnariel turned her back on him and he averted his gaze and listened to the rustle of fabric as she disrobed. He didn’t watch her go to the high balcony and jump. He only could bear to feel the coolness of the shadow of the massive dragon as it took to the sky.
The Pearl referenced in this story, read the full version here
Response to @draconecastle ‘s post here
@daily-writing-challenge
Tw brief spice, not explicit
She felt the beat and throb of her heart and heard the rush of blood in her ears, how her body held him inside, the flutter and tightening of her release. Mirabella experienced her own mortality acutely when his tear slid into the hollow of her throat. She traced the wet trail it had made, fingertips skimming over the arch of his cheek.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” she said around the tightening of her throat, around the ache that didn’t belong to her, that she invited into herself. It was just the smallest taste of his soul, cradling the pain in his eyes to her chest. “To be able to hurt. To cry. It’s sublime you’re sharing it with me.”
She could feel it then, the veil separating them, getting just a little thinner as she looked up at his face framed by the curtain of his raven hair. With him still inside her, she drew him down for a kiss, the salt of their tears on his lips. “Once, long ago, there was a girl who lived alone by the sea.” She murmured in between the drag of her mouth over his. “She built her house out of shipwrecks, out of the devastation and mercurial shifts of the sea, wanting to create home from grief and loss.” She didn’t know what possessed her to tell it to Manus but she felt it important to do so.
The Pearl was the only fairytale she’d not written her own ending for. When she had given the book to an angry, wild little girl, she had hoped Anya would make her own ending. That she would find her own Pearl. And she had. Regardless of her terrifying power and the horror of their reunion, Mirabella saw the fire of love in Anya’s eyes. Fire that hadn’t been there before. That’s how she knew that the story she’d loved most hadn’t been for her after all. It had been hers to give. Not to keep.
Manus looked down at her in a way no mortal man had ever looked at her. He didn’t see her as a commodity to be bought or sold. He didn’t look at her like the brief, fleeting thing she was. His open gaze made glossy by tears just held her gently with the softest fascination. It made her feel…beautiful. And very briefly…understood. They shared a pain impossible to define and articulate. They sought similar answers from an unfeeling, chaotic universe. They both demanded meaning from the surly, callous passage of time. To alchemize suffering. To make it MEAN something.
To find a way home.
Even if there wasn’t a way.
“The girl grew to fear the one thing she had once so earnestly sought. Love became a danger to her broken heart. She tried to protect herself from it with the Old Magic. With charm and curse. With vow. But there exists no oath or spell to control love. You cannot draw it to you. Nor can you push it away. It is its own force, a consciousness that sees its own will done.” She didn’t say this to scold or correct. It was said gently. Not with bitterness. It was a tender truth they both needed to understand. “So, the girl could not stop love when it came for her, whispering to her from seashells, replacing the song of the sea, beautiful and seductive so that it drowned even the song of sirens.”
“A fae prince came from across the sea, from another world. Perhaps he was lonely where he was from. Maybe…despite all his power and wealth, he could only feel the ache of what was missing. For all his magic and power, love was not something he could bend to his will.”
It wasn’t lost on Mira that Manus could be that dark, beautiful prince. Once more guilt filled her. She had declined his invitation to dinner before she understood what it meant to him. All he could do was give. He could create. Manifest. See down the long road of time. But he couldn’t command love.
“And so the prince and the girl fell into impossible love. Impossible because he couldn’t remain in the mortal realm. He had to leave the girl. So, he left her his heart, a giant pearl. He had hoped she would sell it. That it would grant her a life of riches and ease. But how could she sell the heart of the being she loved? She couldn’t. Instead, she remained in her house of curses and shipwrecks, waiting for her prince even though she knew she’d never see him again.”
She paused, cradling his face. “We are never entitled to love. To happy endings. I found this so unbearable, I used to change sad endings in stories. But not for the characters. For myself. It was unbearable to know my dream couldn’t come true. But maybe…I should have a new dream. And what I can’t have for myself…I’ll give to someone who needs it.”
It hurt to say this. Like cutting off a gangrenous limb. It bled. It spilled its poison but it freed her from it. All women gave what they wished to receive, even if they weren’t aware of it. Mirabella thought that in giving this, it would be the only way to mend her own broken heart. And even if it didn’t, she felt it was simply the right thing to do. To witness suffering and then to ease it could bear no other name but love.
“I will be your friend. And then you are not alone because love lives in a space without distance or time. And maybe…you don’t need all the answers. Would they help or satisfy anyway?” She asked softly.
