MAEGYA | xiv. "IT'S THEIR FATE." TAINTED OBLIGATIONS
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WHEN THE HUMAN body gets sick, it starts off with a single infection. One, lone nasty intruder. Pretty soon the threat duplicates. It becomes two. Then those two become four. Four become eight and so on with the multiplication tables. Then, before the body knows it, it's being invaded. It's under siege.
Was Theadora Valaryen supposed to stand and look at the man she's heard countless stories about, dreaming and envying his very name? This man... this zombie, an illusion, a memory, an invader? She couldn't tell what he was.
Every single joint in her body was frosted over, her tendons and limbs caging her into her rigid posture. The silent sister that always whispered in her mind was screaming now. The only reason why she didn't burn this person to the ground was that she knew he wasn't her Rhaeon.
But wasn't he close enough to the brother she always thought about?
"Okay, lots of stares," the self-proclaimed Rhaeon huffed out, giving them a dazzling smile. He looked at the two on Thea's sides. "Peter, Bex, nice to see you're still aiding my sister on her annoying little quests." There wasn't anything friendly in that upturn. He inclined his head forward, cocking his eyebrows. "Well?"
Thea immediately decided she didn't like him.
"Well, what?" she asked plainly. She thought it would've taken longer to regain her senses enough to speak. Instead, she stared at that ghost shamelessly, her tone calm and suspiciously casual. Peter and Bex may have thought she was trying to be tough but really, Thea was just too tired to care anymore.
"Where's Dad? I traced his presence here and you're going to help me enlist Strange's help to find him." His words were carried by the cool tone of a leader. This guy was used to giving orders and having people follow them.
But Thea scoffed, a genuinely amused smile cracking on her face. "You think I know where Aeres is? Try six feet in the ground."
Rhaeon's eyes darkened. A maelstrom of power awakened in the gold-flecked irises of his eyes, swirling, eternally inundating like they were touched by the fingers of some abyssal deity. They could melt the polar ice caps with their intensity. If there was ever a more inappropriate moment for Theadora's cynicism, it was now.
"Uh, T-teddy, maybe—"
The prince lifted a hand. Licks of scarlet light danced around his lean, skilled fingers with precision, pooling into a small sphere that gyrated in his palm. The hellish glow painted his once-genial face in hues of orange, flickering like shadows of fire against a wall.
Thea felt her blood ice over, weighing her body down. Orange Dragofyre. A variant form of her own powers. So he didn't send the Shadowcreeper.
"Hey, away from the car!" Bex barked, lunging forward to throw her arms over the blue hood of the TARDIS. She had parked it by the curb with the intention of it not being blown up by a multiversal Valaryen prince.
