I - Breath of Flame

Chapter 39 - The Taste of Rust

-Aleksandra Bane-

She didn't want to look. She made sure it happened fast enough she didn't have to see it, didn't have to drag it on, to watch him suffer much longer.

But she regretted it. She resented yelling at him, telling him that he was at fault too, making him feel regretful right before he said he would die for the possibility of a better world. How heroic. What if they failed later, then what use would it have been? If Atlanta could not kill her King, then they would have failed and Willim's death would have been unecessary.

"Live for us," he had said. Live for whom? Willim and Bathyl? Their souls were sharing the same body, definitely, but for whom was she to live for if that wasn't what he meant? If Aleksandra were to look around the room, she would have discovered there was no one she was willing to do that for, except for the lone person who now lay in her arms, dead before her.

She had never wanted this, this kind of ending. But then what, leave him to the Ambassadors to truly suffer for the rest of his life?

Ha, but what life does he have now? He's dead.

She wasn't in the least fascinated by death anymore, at least, not now.

Aleksandra could not stop staring at his still form, collapsed and cold. Her brother, gone, just like that, and she had allowed it. Gods, how could she have allowed it? A sick feeling welled in her gut, and she didn't even notice the barrier shatter and rain fragile pieces on her back, pelting her and Dareon in its stinging contact.

Dareon.

She turned to the boy, eyeing his horrified face. They were both still, with her hand wrapped around his wrist, and his fingers clutching the black rock that had once been Willim's heart, no longer pumping life through his veins. Aleksandra felt sick. The rock did not shine, it did not resemble a treasure or the kindness that Willim possessed. It was dull and heavy, it didn't do him justice. They had done everything, for this rock? She had made Dareon do it too, she had forced him to kill her brother. Her breath caught as she realized that it could not be undone.

How many lives had she ruined, she wondered.

She was truly a monster.

Somebody suddenly roughly clawed at the collar of her shirt, pulling sharply backwards, nearly choking her. She was tossed to the floor, gasping at the pain shooting through her body as she arched at the impact, Willim falling from her hands. Pain was the only thing she could feel. Just pain.

"You have chosen the wrong person to defy," the First Ambassador stood over her, breathing heavily. Sweat trickled down the scales that climbed over his one yellow eye. "No matter. He would have died anyway, that poison still worked through his veins. We've already gotten what we've come for."

Across the room Atlanta and Lucan were magically tied by rope and bound to the floor by the other Ambassadors who had successfully destroyed their barrier, but neither of them looked done and willing to surrender yet. They watched, still, waiting for an opportunity. Aleksandra was quite proud of that, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

All of the Ambassadors were in many ways malformed. Mutated, like hybrid beasts. The First grinned devilishly at her with his yellow eye.

"Yes, you've noticed," he crowed, "A mere consequence of achieving a requirement of Gods."

Dareon, who had earlier been next to her, was clutching Willim's heart close to him as the other Ambassadors approached him with malicious intent. He had gone quite far, and the advisors were walking slowly towards him, exhausted from their effort to destroy the barrier.