I changed to my half-human form and my claws flashed out, ripping through the throats of the two guards before they had time to react.
Aurelius’ eyes went wide as the gold-plated fire iron flew through the air to suddenly impale itself in his abdomen.
“Wha—” he gasped, then seemed to notice the bloodstain that had begun to grow around the implement.
Luke climbed to his feet and stood over his former tormentor, his jaw clenched.
“I’ve wanted nothing but to see you dead at my hand for years, Aurelius,” he said.
He winced for a moment, and I realized the Aurelius was trying to bring his Suppression ability to bear against Luke.
“We’ll have none of that,” Luke declared. The rings of power suddenly flared and Aurelius fell back as if he’d been slapped.
“P-poseidon?” He began gasped quizzically.
“No, not Poseidon. Though he was certainly useful for this,” Luke said, looking down at the seated man.
“Prince Lucien,” Aurelius wheezed. “Iwasright!”
“Wrong again. It’s just Luke now,” he said. “You got me disinherited, or did you forget?”
“You—you’re Mageia. You could never inherit,” he panted. “The King—”
“Will donothing. He doesn’t know I’m here andyoucertainly won’t be telling him anything.”
I was back in fully human form and noted distantly that my clothes had, indeed, returned. I moved to stand beside Luke, my hand brushing his for just a moment.
“Guards!” Aurelius yelled, panic finally beginning to suffuse his face.
Luke grabbed Aurelius’ face, his fingers digging deep grooves into the man’s skin.
“The Guard’s in the hall are dead. I killed them while you dallied with me,” Luke said. I looked at him sharply, sending my senses out into the hallway. Sure enough, there were two bodies only just beginning to cool in the hall. I hadn’t even noticed he had done it. Both were even still on their feet somehow. I could sense the holes in their feet where the spikes of stone ran up and through their corpses.
Aurelius paled further.
“P-please…” Aurelius begged.
“How many times did I beg you, Aurelius?” Luke hissed; his eyes were wide as he pulled Aurelius back to his feet. “How many times as a child did I cry and plead with you and Maalik not to hurt me, not torapeme? And how many times did you do it anyway?”
Stone flowed up through the marble floor and twined its way around Aurelius body like scaffolding. I started to panic when it also began to form around Luke, but it just flowed to his hand and formed itself into a marbled stone knife with an edge as sharp as a razor.
“How—” he sputtered, blood beginning to spatter from his mouth.
“Maybe I should thank you, my Lord. You sent me exactly where I needed to be to find my Soma and unlock my powers as a Tesseris Mageia,” Luke responded.
“Tesseris? T-that’s—that’s just a legend! Fairy tales!” Aurelius gasped. “There are no such things!”
“Well, this fairy tale has something he’s been wanting to do foryears, Aurelius,” Luke murmured, his voice low. His hand with the dagger flashed out and I saw Aurelius’ mouth open in a cry I couldn’t hear as his bloody cock and balls hit the floor, a flood of crimson streaming down his legs.
Aurelius was so thoroughly encased by stone at this point that he couldn’t move anything except his mouth, which was moving in a hysterical babble of pain and screams that I was glad I couldn’t hear. The stone slowly flowed over his mouth and the blood that bled from beneath him stained the white marble red.
Luke took a deep breath and dropped the knife.
How are those ghosts?I signed.
I think…he began signing, then switched to speech, having hit the extent of his sigh language vocabulary. “I think they’ve been thoroughly exorcised,” he said before pulling me into a deep kiss.
“C’mon. Looks like Elex and Hel need our help,” he said.
