A little more, just enough to—
The silver-skinned mage stands, the white markings upon her head blaze as her aura floods the room, so bright and sharp.
“And who the fuck areyou?” she snarls, eyes locked on me.
A mage, just like Alexis. But this one is filled with an abundance of light, and her pure white eyes are blinding. My darkness wants to feed.
I hold back, don’t move, don’t speak. But I feel my bonds’ reaction to her words. I didn’t amplify their emotions, I kept well away. But their anger, their fury at the mage’s disrespectful tone, swells.
I’m not angry, I don’t even feel offended, because her rage isn’t the kind that comes from guilt, it comes from the need to survive. She isn’t the leak, she’s simply fighting for her life.
“Stop,”I order, never dropping my gaze from the mage.“Don’t intervene. Ignore her. Change the focus.”
There’s a hum in the air. A long pause, and I wonder if it’s too late.
“Orion, what do you think, pal? Who’s the traitor?” Sai slides in with his taunting tone, placing a friendly hand on the Commander’s shoulder.
It slices clean through the rising chaos, pulling all focus back to him. The mage’s anger flares instantly, at being dismissed, at Orion being addressed like his loyalty is unquestioned.
Now I pull, plucking those thinning threads of emotion, thinning them until they’re prime to snap.
Orion, the man who suggested simply to‘end them all’, spends a moment contemplating. He’s calm, almost too calm.
“You say that as though there is only one, sir.” The moment the words leave Orion’s mouth, the mage explodes.
“I swear to the Holy Goddess of Light, if you say my name, Orion, I will kill you before they kill me,” she snarls, her fury white-hot, sight locked on him.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Commander,” Sai drawls to the mage. “We’re not killing anyone.” His fingers tighten on Orion’s shoulder, enough that he winces. “You’ll just be spending some time with me. A long, long, long time.” His grin is almost sweet, but the hum of restrained electricity builds as he drifts behind each chair, fingertips dragging across the wood.
Every touch leaves a faint scorch mark.
All their faces pale, and Sai continues to move behind each Commander.
“I’m happy to take volunteers.” Crackling tendrils follow in his wake. “Anyone?” he murmurs, each step punctuated by the sharp crack of power. “Or should we draw lots? Shortest straw… Last one to scream?”
“I’d start with the mage.” Orion’s lazy smirk is so similar to Sai’s, it’s uncanny, and then he tilts his head, baring his throat to her. I don’t understand the gesture, but it rattles her. “She has a bad habit of acting impulsively, always making things worse for herself, right Eury?”
I’m knocked by the briefest snippet of astrangeemotion, then she’s grabbing Orion by the collar of his chest plate. “I’m going to rip you apart you blood-sucking, spineless, lying—”
Even through the insults and manhandling, Orion’s smirk never fades, maybe even widensas her hand curls into a blinding fist of white.
“They’re breaking.”Ezekial’s voice slips into our minds, cutting through the altercation.
The room is balanced on a knife’s edge, the air thrumming with restrained violence. But just when I thought there might be blood, the earth revolts.
Sai steps back just as thick, black vines erupt, twisting between the mage and vampire, hurling them apart. Orion crashes back into his seat with a grunt edging into laughter.
The mage, Eury, lands in her seat hard, hands sparking with barely restrained light.
But the vines don’t stop. They coil around the earth elemental protectively, creating a spiked, undulating barrier.
“You two are fucking losing it!” he roars, gaze snapping from one to the other. “If either of you touch me, or each other, again, I’ll suffocate you.”
The air crackles, thick with this lingering rage I’ve embellished. And if I keep going, I’ve no doubt there will be a brawl.
But one commander is eerily still, while the others are swept up in the storm of synthetic fury. As if rage is a thing he once knew and discarded. A memory, not a sensation.
And his eyes, a pale shade of red, haven’t left me since Eury asked who I was. It’s not a glare. Not suspicion. Not even wariness. It’s something quieter. Something worse.
