♔ 𝔑𝔦𝔯𝔞 ♔
In the security of the wing, I wash myself clean. Rid of all that taints me of my father's plan, and my success in ruining it.
The silence aids my thought, allows me to dwell on all that has occurred. That my family is hardly that. They are not to be trusted – Darin too, for as long as he is split between our father and me, his loyalty must always be questioned. At least my father I can determine to be my enemy. A separate one, to those that wronged me in Vrodora, but a male that will feel my fury, nonetheless. More so if he attempts to take Vrodora. The ruins of that Realm are mine, and I will kill him before I let him steal me of that victory. I will kill him if his actions impose a threat to the very few people that I care for that live there.
There is a question of who that even consist of. Sloan is gone – all I can protect of her now is the memories that live within me. Cenred. I will do anything to see that he lives. Would I extend the same courtesy to Ezekiel? He has betrayed me, several times now, because of his fealty to Zaire. He was my friend. Is he now? Or is he another Darin, who might fail to stand beside me because of his ties with the Lord of Abutilon? I do not want to see him die, but I do not know that I would risk myself to protect him.
Then, the Night Court. It does not matter how much I fight the sentimentality, there is no denying that they have, all of them, come to mean something to me. It is difficult to distinguish what they mean, but I have decided that if I were to see any of them come to harm, it would ache me. No longer, despite my threats, do I wish them harm. Not after the hospitality each of them have shown me. Libitina, offering me closure in relation to Sloan. Calix, in housing me and feeding me and seeing that I could say goodbye to my friend. Ryke. He has become a friend, despite my every attempt to maintain a distance. I appreciate his company. Trust him, as Calix does. Even Tynan – though he irks me incomparably, if he were not here to do so, I would miss his jibes and jokes.
I hadn't meant to come to care for them. Hadn't meant to concern myself with if they live or die. It levels me with a sense of responsibility. A conscience. More so when they persistently position themselves between me and danger.
Having dressed, I take myself into the common area, steps faltering when I notice Calix relaxed on the sofa. He's alone, waiting for me it seems, because his eyes immediately fall upon me. He says nothing, and so I see no need in fracturing the silence either. I sit opposite him, sights cast to the window as I watch the horizon with unnecessary vigilance.
My fingers tug through my wet hair, snagging on knots as I comb it through. It is a fidgety movement, so that I can occupy myself with something as Calix studies me. That, which he does for a significant length of time, until it irritates me so much that my skin begins to bristle under the scrutiny.
"Is there something you want?" I sigh heavily, turning to him. My hands still fiddle with my hair as I meet his stare. "I would usually have the energy to embark on some kind of verbal battle with you, but not today, not now. I am tired."
He nods with understanding, reclining further into his seat, spreading his knees and unfurling his arms along the back of the sofa. I watch him, impassive, despite my curiosity at his newfound ease.
In fact, he looks so unlike himself. His hair isn't neat, but tousled, as though he has dragged his hands through it too many times. He's wearing only a shirt – no dress coat in sight - and the collar is undone, sleeves bunched at his elbows. His pants strain over his flexed thighs.
"I know. I have only come to see how you are. To ask." I raise a brow at that.
"That sort of behaviour goes against the grain of your character." His lips quirk but he says nothing, waiting for me to divulge some sort of answer. Instead, I return the conversation with a question of my own. "Is it wrong, that I am glad I did what I did, today? Is it wrong that I do not feel any guilt for killing those Guards?"
His small smile pulls free, teeth peaking behind his lips. It holds a boyish sort of charm, and it is the first I have ever seen him look quite so... un-Lord like. "It burdens you, that you are guiltless? You are something of an enigma, Daenira."
"I felt guilty before – eventually – when I killed the Fae in the Equinox." I tell him, unsure as to where the confession springs from.
He hums, somewhat thoughtful. "Then perhaps you will eventually feel guilty about those Guards too. Though, it is nothing to worry over if you do not. It does not lessen your integrity – it is not as though they were innocents." I try not to be sated by his words. His beliefs do not make my actions morally correct. Though, have any of my actions been moral, recently?
"Well then, to answer your question, I suppose I am fine. Tired, but fine." I push my hair behind my ears and pull my knees to my chin as I shuffle into the chair. It isn't a lie, for I am tired, but to admit I am drained is not something I feel comfortable announcing aloud. I am emotionally taxed, after the Seer, and Magnus. The betrayal of my father, the killing. How has this all happened in a day?
Calix's eyes never leave me. "Can we talk about the Seer and what she spoke of?"
"No demanding?" Humour softens my features. "Perhaps we should talk instead of if you are feeling well."
"I can demand several things from you, if that is what you would like, King Slayer." My lip's part at the thinly veiled suggestion in those words. He doesn't recoil under my curious gaze. Rather, he seems to relish in it.
My eyes drop to his feet before rising back to his face preceding my answer. "She was hardly coherent. A jumble of words, for the most part." I pause, running my fingers over the gristly scar tissue along the side of my hand. "I know Libitina thinks that she did not know what she was saying, but to me, it was almost like... like she knew too much. As though she could not pick from all the things she saw."
He inches forward with interest. "What words did she say?"
"Chaos, ruin and death seemed to be of upmost importance." I pull at the collar of my blouse, desperate for air. "Lady Chaos. Give and take death. Two minds – she said that as though, well... as though I have two minds." I wait for his scoff of derision.
Instead, he lets his head fall on a slight tilt. "It could mean more that you have a decision to make. A being could be in two minds on their options."
I clench my hands tightly as I ready myself to confess. It seems necessary now. After all the Seer said. More so, if Calix plans to stand beside me as I seek my revenge. Offer me help to do so. Honesty will not make me weak.
"I hear a voice, sometimes. Not mine, not my thoughts. It is... different. As though it exists within me, but I cannot reach it, or control it. I could converse with it, I think, if I were to try." Calix keeps his expression stoic as the words fall unbidden from my tongue. "It told me that I could break the shield. Told me to run. Told me I was wrong when I tried to freeze the water the first time."
He takes a moment to consider what I have told him. "Is it familiar?"
"No. Maybe? It shocks me, when I hear it. But doesn't scare me. I trust it, as stupid as that might sound. It feels like more than a voice. It feels like..." I fall short, aware of how foolish I sound.
"Like what, Nira?" Calix presses softly.
An odd sense of vulnerability rushes over me. "It feels like something else. Apart from me, like the Stygian."
"The Stygian?" He echoes.
"It is what the darkness wished to be called." To confirm my claim, I call upon it. A single, fragile tendril sprouts from my palm. "It is mine, it acts to my whim if I ask it to, but it behaves alone. In the bath, when the Guards – I didn't ask it to kill them. I called on it for protection. The way it gutted them, ripped them into pieces, that was all its own doing." We both watch as the Stygian grows, reaching out towards the Lord of Night.
He doesn't flinch from it as it weaves towards him, nor when it runs over his knees, up his arm, or when it caresses his cheek. "Your thoughts, or its?" The Stygian runs across his face gently, as though the touch of a lover.
I shake my head. "This is not me." It begins to wrap around his throat, and with a worrying fear settling within me at what its intentions are, I call the Stygian back. It doesn't resist, shrinking with a subdued energy back into my palm until it exists no longer.
"Sometimes I wonder if we are offered more questions than we can find answers." He mutters, and I find myself inclined to agree. "Two minds. What else did she say?"
"Several things. She rattled off a prophecy of some sort. Black chasm and stars. Incomplete without the other. Born royal, made royal. It spoke of two beings. Spoke of rule and prosperity. It named me plenty. Lady Chaos. Goddess of Death. That I am death. Said something about a gift from Keres. A dark strength, capable of ruin. War. The only thing I understood was Wyvern Tamer. That I have been called before. That was why I protected her in the Quarter."
"I suppose it is best that the wyvern comes home with us, then. Though, I have no idea how you plan on arranging that." I try not to blanch at his words. Home. Is that what the Night Court has become to me? I cannot even recall if I ever referred to Abutilon as home. I know I never quite felt a fondness to Zaire's Court as I do Calix's. Yet, it was only ever bound to be a temporary stay. When did Calix begin to consider it more of a permanent fixture for me?
I shake my head free of the questions. "She will fly. Alongside Tynan. Ryke says I have the Dullahan's power to control animals. There is no better way to test it than this."
The Lord's eyes flicker with mirth as he lounges against the sofa's arm. He cups his chin in his hand. The posture, his behaviour, I hardly recognise him to be the same person with how he carries himself now. I twist to face him, study him, try to understand where this change has come from. What event caused it.
"You know, if I lose the Kythiran to the belly of your beast, I will be most aggrieved." A joke. My lips tilt up on their own volition, and when he notices, he smiles back – a genuine, full grin. It is a charming look on Calix, softening his entire demeanour, and right now, it is a crack in his façade privy only to me. In that moment of realisation, something shifts. There is a difference, almost tangible, so thick that it suffocates me. He looks at me as though I am someone else, not the girl who he forced to her knees to bow. Not the girl who snarled and lashed at his every extension of generosity. He looks at me as though he considers me... equal.
I am not sure why it makes my cheeks heat.
"And then?" He continues.
His words tug me from my reverie. "And then, what?"
"What are you plans?" He queries with honest curiosity, a pondering expression slackening his features. I study the animation of his face, no longer as stoic and nonchalant as I am accustomed to. It is captivating to see him wear his emotions so blatantly. "We return to the Night Court, wyvern in tow. What then? What do you want?"
"Nothing has changed." I admit, and my hand moves to my chest. This time, not because of the power within it, for that has settled to a comfortable presence. No, this time, it is to remind myself of the mark of Abutilon that sits there. "Nothing much, anyway. I still want my comeuppance. It is only that I have added another name to the list."
Calix hums. Then asks, "What revenge is that?" It is a needless question, for he has already reached his own conclusion on what that means.
Still, I announce the truth. "I kill them. All that have wronged me. Or, at the least, make them wish that I had. Then I will tear down their homes, stone by stone. The Realm too. All of them, until their lives are as pitiful as mine was."
"Will any of them be worthy of your mercy?"
I lift a shoulder with disinterest. "Those that showed me the same decency."
"Few then." He flicks at an absent piece of lint on his shirt, casting his eyes elsewhere. It is the first time he has looked away from me this entire conversation.
I make no rush to respond. Instead, I cannot help but watch him. Notice the way he is reclined, spread in an unconcerned, defenceless fashion. He looks entirely at ease – still relaxed, despite who sits across from him. Despite all the things, the merciless things, he has seen me do over the past several months. He does not fear me, not like so many of the others. Does not cower in my company like Inet or Magnus. Does not consider me a threat to him, like my father. Does not view me as his property, like Zaire. There is some unspoken thing that hangs between us, a misted and blurred area of undisclosed confessions, and the more time I spend within it, I think I begin to see a clearing.
So many times, I have threatened him, and not once has he faltered. So many times, have I refused his aid, and not once has he ceased to offer it. So many times, I have stirred animosity, and not once has he heeded it. It is a strange dynamic, considering all the short encounters with this Fae I have had. Except, I see now, at least one thing as he sits only in my company. He is comfortable, after all that has passed between us. It is not that he deems me incapable of harming him, he has conceded that I am capable of doing just that. With his admittance or not, it is that he is coming to trust me, even without me having ever given him a reason to do so.
"Calix," His name sounds far too gentle from my tongue. He turns to face me, waiting for me to go on. "You are one of them. Worthy of my mercy." Hear me when I tell you, not everyone has such terrible intentions. There are people that will do everything they can to help you, even if you do not ask for it. Even if you do not initially see it as help at all.
Sloan's words ring in my head, outline the actions of Calix. Maybe he is not a good male. There might be a chance that he is the villain that so many perceive him to be. Not all of his actions have been kind, not as he tries to wrestle me for authority, but I cannot deny, no matter how hard I try to, that he has helped me. Endlessly. Housed me. Fed me. Clothed me. Trained me. Guarded me. Helped me, even though I did not ask for it. Even though he presented it as a benefit to himself and his Court, rather than me.
I do not understand the Fae and their intentions, perhaps never will. Yet, I can understand compassion when I see it. Compassion in allowing Libitina to search for Sloan. In allowing me to lay her to rest in his Court. In defending me against a King – my father. In keeping me safe, but free all at once.
While I am the villain in so many stories, and the hero in my own, Calix is quite the same. He is far from a villain to me.
He doesn't smile, but he nods. Understanding? Thanks? I do not dwell on the gesture. "I am glad. I would much prefer to support your wrath than be the one to face it."
"I might change my mind if you have me bow at your feet again." My lips fight a grin as he raises a brow in light amusement.
"I will keep that in mind." Those are the last words exchanged between us. We stay in a comfortable silence from then on, one that lulls me to sleep, Calix's presence still opposite me. Unthreatening. Assuring. Familiar.
———
Well, isn't this an interesting development?
It seems past all her anger, Nira still wants to have friends. She's even joking - who'd have thought?
Potential concern that she cares for the Night Court Crew? Might be.
Thoughts?