“Sister, you look as beautiful as always!” he lied.
She let out a tinkling laugh and her free hand rose almost self-consciously to the crown of antlers. Haera was not beautiful. Her raw ambition and ruthlessness cut her features into hard planes. That bony crown did not soften her, but seemed to sharpen those qualities about his elder sister.
Is that how she sensed me so easily? What can that do? What is it? And how did she get such a thing?
“Flattery is always so thick on your tongue, Rhalyf, that I wonder if you can ever speak a bad word,” she smiled.
Considering how he had nearly sliced Darcassan’s head off with his words earlier, he would have to say yes, he could say a bad word. He had just watched himself with her. Most of the time.
“What brings you here?” He asked casually as if this were a meeting on a usual street, as if they weren’t both trespassers here.
Unless she is with Vex. Maybe she convinced him that she was not behind the plot to unseat him from the throne. It makes sense that he did not travel all the way here alone.
“Is not Illithor a perfect place for a family reunion?” She lightly began to glide down the steps. “Our home. Our rightful home.”
Her red eyes were not on him as she said the last. But were, once again, gazing out at the city as she had when he’d first spied her with a sense of utter satisfaction. He remembered his own feeling of drunkenness in the city. Was she experiencing the rush of power that he had? Of course, she was. But she wouldn’t have pushed it away but reveled in it. He hoped it was dulling her a little bit.
“Are you here with King Vex?” he asked as she drew nearer.
He resisted the urge to run. It was useless. She’d strike him down the moment his back was turned and he’d taken a step. Lament desperately wanted to appear in his hand. But he kept it at bay.
Her eyes suddenly left the city and sharpened on him. No longer were they dulled by wonder. “Our uncle?”
Does she not know he’s here? Interesting.
“Yes, Haera. Our uncle. The Night King. He’s here.” Rhalyf smiled back at her, but he made his smile easy and relaxed as if he was with Vex himself.
That might buy me some time here.
“So that is how you found your way to Illithor,” she murmured as she continued to walk down the steps towards him. “Of course, it is. You wouldn’t have found the city any other way.”
He let the insult slide off of him and he didn’t correct her. In a way she was right. He was here because of their uncle. Let her think they were boon companions.
“You said that this was the temple worshiping the Hunter?” He made that into a question.
She nodded. “Yes. The Forever Hunt. And his prey.” She nodded towards the stag who looked ready to leap off its plinth and take off. “Our uncle is so interesting, is he not? To allow a religion based upon his death to exist in the heart of Illithor?”
Rhalyf blinked, but then he remembered what Helgrom had told him and Aquilan about the two meanings of the song. “That’s only if you believe our uncle is the stag.”
She paused in her descent. A flicker of something went through her eyes. “I heard you fled, brother. But you went to Vex yourself, did you? Threw yourself at his feet as you so wanted to do even as a child? Somehow got him to spare you?”
Another blink. She meant that time Vex had gestured for him to come to him. The time he’d just been thinking of. His memory expanded of that moment and he recalled that Haera had been standing beside him when he’d taken that step towards Vex. Her eyes had flickered between them when Vex had called to him. Her mouth had flattened into a thin line. And she’d smiled when he’d moaned in pain at their mother’s too rough grip.
“You make it sound as if being loyal to our king is a weakness,” he laughed, but uneasily.
He had run away. That she didn’t know his true fate meant… what? That she had fled too? Maybe right after him. And what of their parents? He couldn’t ask her that or risk exposing that he had left the Kindreth when she had.
“You’ve always wanted to hide in his shadow, Rhalyf. While there are those of us who wish to step outside of it,” she answered.
She was now only three steps above him. They’d been at striking distance magically from the first time she’d spoken. But now if they struck at each other there would be no room for error. If either of them missed a hand movement, flubbed a syllable, zigged right when they should have zagged left, it would be likely a fatal blow.
“I wonder how many people have said something similar over the millennia, Haera. Probably too many to count,” he said softly and wearily. “Were you in on the original plot to overthrow him or did losing everything just push you over into this madness?”
Her red eyes flared hot crimson. “How dare–”
“No! How dare you!” He snapped. The anger came from out of nowhere and also out of countless hurts. But it surprised her. And him, if he were honest. “I want to hear the extent of your idiocy! Tell me! Tell me! NOW!”
“Why does it matter? He sees me as a traitor either way,” she said.
