Her Worlds

Chapter 18

working on a new project, working on a new project, working on a new new project

Highly recommend listening to BTS Black Swan Orchestra without lyrics on youtube while you read but if you are too lazy then, oh well, have fun anyway.

trigger/content warning: gore (nothing super graphic), blood

Gritting my teeth, I swallow the pain down to let it broil to anger. Blinking away the tears, I focus beyond on the soldiers charging straight at me, where my sister, my blood, was staring at me, cold and empty and calculative.

"To think I loved you!" I scream, drawing my sword and razing down the first man in front of me, a sea of blood temporarily obstructing my view of her.

Soldier after soldier, I swing and spin and stab, my legs gliding this way and that as if gliding through water. The blood spattered marble floors only served to disoriented and throw the soldiers off balance, whereas I glided through every puddle with ingrained familiarity. Spinning with my sword in hand, I swing in an arc, effectively slicing the throat of the man trying to sneak behind me and stab my back.

"To think I almost gave my life to protect you!" I scream again, looking at the momentary flash of fear on her face.

"Soldiers! Kill her!" She screamed, face tinged with hot anger.

More stepped up, surrounding me with glistening iron. I manage to glide beneath the first blade, and swing up at his exposed wrist, severing his hand before instinctively twisting my wrist and moving into the killing blow, slicing another clean arc into his neck. Soldier after soldier, I dodge and slice, disorient and confuse, sever and kill. The cold marble room was painted red in her fruitless attempt to kill me, a mountain of iron and corpses lay around me.

"Is this what I get after risking my whole life for you? Is this what my sacrifices and love have amounted to? An assassination attempt?"

"You are nothing but a reckless murderer."

"I am your sister!"

"You stopped being my sister the day you abandoned me."

"I brought the soldiers attention to me, made them follow me and not notice you so you could escape. I jumped off a cliff for you!"

She says nothing else to me as she solemnly raises a hand to the air and commands, "Fire."

A series of arrows are shot and I swallow my pain once more, pivoting my foot as I swing my sword to block the arrows, sending them clattering to the ground.

"Your rein ends here, Pythia."

"And your bloody rebellion ends here, Alister."

I move forward, every step heavy, yet smooth like water. Leon trained me night and day for this—to fight, to kill. If I have to kill my sister, then so be it, she stopped being my sister a long time ago anyway.

Pythia's stance grew more tense with every step, looking to the rafters, probably to discover not a single arrow head gleaming under the lights. Leon and Zephyr had taken care of them by now.

"You just had to do this didn't you? Take over the empire to find and kill your only weakness."

"A ruler can't afford to be weak if they wish to rule and protect."

"And you do that by draining your people dry of resources and taking parents' children to train and draft them into war?"

"We can't afford to bow down to our neighboring tyrants."

"Like you are so much better than them," I sneer and raise my sword to point under her raised chin, the posture of a Empress trained into her bones while the power and confidence of a soldier was ingrained into my own.

"I protect my people, you kill yours," she smiles, sending furry through me.

"I only killed those who attempt to kill me."

"So you will even strike down your own family?" A calculative confidence fills her eyes, showing me just how confident she was that I wouldn't kill her.

"You are nothing but blood," I grin back. "I think I very well shown just where the blood of a traitor belongs."

:) can I just say I hate the spelling of assassination, anyway no more spoils unless I just don't finish the project lmao