Always As You Say (Book One In The Waven Series)

38(last chapter)

Anthony's POV

His hands. His hands were covered in blood, drenched in it. And his eyes, those eyes were filled to the brim with the sight of his atrocities, those orchestrated for this singular purpose. To bring about this particular moment and to leave his very soul in tatters.

This was it. The moment the man I knew departed, replaced itself with a cruder copy of who he had murdered and now stood over.

Everything was too intense, I could feel and see and know it all too sharply.

Could see the beads of sweat on Nik's forehead, dripping down in time to the blood that kept flowing from The Waven, even as I knew his soul left his body an empty husk.

Could feel the sharp crescents being dug into my skin where my Amara's hands gripped me, held me back and away.

Now I knew what Nik's face looked like ensanguined, knew the sound of Amara's voice as she told me to be still, commanded me to stop moving.

Knew the look of apathetic triumph that Nik's face could warp into. The way his eyes could gloss over, his hands could go slack.

Too much, there was too much.

Too much noise as the crowding started, too much quiet as the soldiers took notice, as they looked at Nik with some sort of twisted admiration for what he had done to the man who had created and breeded hate in them.

I saw as they went down, knees to floors, their hands following suit soon thereafter. Heads lowered in reverent whispering.

He saw them, I know he saw them, but his gaze was locked on me, on Amara behind me. He was waiting for something, for her to do something, and for me to react.

And then, the pressure eased.

Her hands, which had previously held me to her tightly, released, allowing me to fall forward and her to sink down.

She followed her fellow soldiers, keeping that submissive bow, indiscernible words pouring through her lips as she did as they had been doing since he plunged the knife through flesh, bowed before him.

Now his eyes were trained on me, awaiting a reaction.

For a moment he seemed disappointed that he hadn't rattled me, but them his face began to take on the shape of that smirk, that awful, awful smirk. To the fallen Waven before him he went, retrieving that wretched knife from his flesh.

With it in hand he turned again, the eyes locked on mine holding no emotion, and left the room with a flourish, his kneeling soldiers continuing their chant.

Slowly their whispers rose, bringing clarity to what it was they said, repeated breathe for breathe and aimed at Nik.

"Waven."

Like a mantra, a symphony of chaos. Passing title, unto him, from the man whom he had felled.

Nik, my Nik, our Nik was being praised as him, and I was being moved. Not to that wretched site of torture, but away from any place this close to him.

Through corridors, and entranceways, past soldiers all still kneeling, past my dearest love Amara, whose lies were poisen on my tongue, and eventually, past Nikolas.

Past him standing rigid and expressionless at once. Uncaring.

But as I turned to leave, those eyes lit with quiet fire. Burned past the cold and hatred and into those of the man I always knew.

They were painful, those eyes of his, as was the contrast between his tortured eyes and cold exterior, and as he burned he nodded, small and simple, but enough. He wasn't gone, he still believed in what we stood for, what we fought for and fought against.

Though that was a less than comforting thought.

For what we fought against was The Waven, and if we were still at war then that meant Nik planned to take up his mantle, to finish whatever it was The Waven had begun before this had ever happened. It meant that it was The Wavens cause he believed in, not ours.

And that meant, that as the day ended, I wouldn't be able to call Nik a friend, for he could never be again.

In fact, he wasn't even Nik any longer, and so I had to stop thinking of him as such. From now on he would go by one name and one name only.

Waven.