The Above

-Twenty Four-

I didn't recognize the woman who walked towards the Shadow King and stood tall at his side, like a loyal lap dog. What was once a protective, caring gaze was now an emotionless, cold glare. What happened to that girl who approached me that day, the girl who changed my life. Tears pricked my eyes, yet I did not let them fall; I merely mimicked her indifferent expression.

"Pylia, what happened?" I asked, careful not to let my voice waver, even when suppressed sobs strained against my throat.

"I'll tell you what happened," Calyx mumbled, watching her every move with a calculating, accusing stare. The only sign that there was still a part of her left was the way she flinched when he spoke. "She sided with the corrupt, she betrayed me and lied—" He was cut off when the guard behind him grabbed him by the hair and forced him to the ground. He grunted as his knees slammed to the hard floor and tufts of his disheveled locks were pulled from his head.

"Speak badly of my Guards and you'll wish I had spared you the same death that traitorous friend of yours had, the pathetic little thing." Calyx hissed in both pain and anger, though I didn't know what the King was talking about. Even still, it seemed Pylia had a notion of what her statement meant, and I wondered just how much she had seen since her arrival at the Tenebris faction.

"Why would you trade your life for this?" I gestured to the room, to the people, to the King, hoping to reason with the girl that had seemed to drift away from all rationality. "Why would you kneel for him when you were given so much better? I mean, Pylia, we had each other. We had a whole faction to support us, yet you—"
"We?" she scoffed. I flinched when she spoke, her harsh tone foreign to me after months without hearing her once caring voice. "There was no one supporting us, Eralyn. You were given the chance at higher education, you had food supplied for you, you had a world waiting to praise you. I was given away, Eralyn. I was tossed to the side, I watched people die on the streets I was forced on as I realized that I would share the same fate. This is better."

"How does it feel knowing that you're now the one slaughtering those innocents? How does it feel when you worship the person who makes you kill?"

"How did it feel when you killed your father, Eralyn?" She asked. The simple question was enough to cause the fire that licked at the air and arced through the room to flicker away. Shadows that were there to protect me now slithered down my body and left me exposed, vulnerable, as I stood there in shock. I couldn't speak; I only stared at the girl who glared back, her expression cold and unreadable. What hurt the most was the fact that she had hardly felt remorse for her words.

I drew in a breath, tears pricking at my eyes, and I broke the very promise we had vowed to make since we met at the orphanage. I activated the ability that had been with me even to the very beginning of our friendship, and I watched as the skin and flesh fell from her body and dissipated. She bore nothing on her bones; the sign that she had truly grown corrupt—that her morals had died, revealed by the skeleton underneath her absent tissues and muscles.

"What happened to you?" My voice was nothing louder than a hoarse whisper. The only hint of emotion she had shown throughout this whole interaction was the curiosity that flitted across her features in this moment. "There's nothing left."

She froze at the three simple words, for she knew the meaning behind them. It was what I had told her each time someone we knew had fallen. Such a meaningless statement held more to the both of us; it had been the reason we grieved and mourned for friends that we knew we had strayed. And now, she could see that the most significant person she lost was herself.

"You broke our vow, Eralyn," she whispered as her eyes glistened with the threat of tears, yet our torn promise was not what had managed to make her show emotion. No, it was the revelation that her soul had perished.