Yes, he knew that. He was in that same boat and yet…
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve decided to betray him now,” Rhalyf realized. “If you seek to go against him at this moment then whether or not you were innocent in the past is irrelevant. But if you were innocent back then–”
“He doesn’t make that distinction, brother.”
“Doesn’t he?” He was asking it rhetorically. He had been so certain he knew the answer. Maybe he still was. But maybe he just hoped for something different.
“I am a Vex. Same as him. My blood is the same as his. My magic is–will be–as powerful. You will see.” She stared at him. “I found the city. It appeared for me–”
He laughed. He couldn’t help himself. He laughed right in her face. It wasn’t what she was saying or her foolishness for saying it, but out of the grief he felt for everything suddenly.
“Why are you laughing, brother?” Her voice dipped into the arctic zone.
“Because,” he laughed bitterly, “because only you would think that. No, actually you're not the only one. You’re just the first of many fools who has stumbled into something and believed it was destiny.”
For a moment, he saw Vex in his mind, sitting on his throne, staring at him. Smiling and waggling his eyebrows. Wanting his youngest nephew to come near. Vex extended a hand towards him in his mind. In his memory though it seemed so real now. Would he take that hand? Would he…
“You have a choice now, Rhalyf,” her voice lowered, “you can take my side against him. The two of us could take him down. Especially with what I’ve found here.” Again, she touched that crown. “You’ve no idea the power here! The possibilities! It’s all ours for the taking! We are Vexes!”
Maybe before he had met Aquilan, he would have taken her offer. And even though he now believed he had lost Aquilan and was likely in Vex’s crosshairs, he found he still did not want it. Besides, he considered himself a citizen of the Aravae Empire. A Kindreth, true. But he was a representative. He would not dishonor that. And oddly, he kept seeing Vex’s smile.
“Vex is our uncle. He is our king. He is the only king the Kindreth will ever truly have. This is his city and these are his things. We can only play dress up in them,” Rhalyf told her.
Her expression became thunderous. “You fool! You still want to play it safe! You still don’t want to choose a side!”
But she was wrong. For he had. And now, he would find out if he had made a terrible mistake. At least, in saying what he had before backing away.
“Haera,” he said even as he called Lament to his right hand and the power of the Void to his left, “I wish we had never met here.”
The Blood Weapon sliced through the air even as he pulled all his magic to shield him. It swung towards her neck and…
It stopped a millimeter away from it. No matter what he did, Rhalyf could not move the sword. Nor could he strike with his magic. He was completely frozen in place. That damned crown must have given her powers that put her well beyond him. He glared up at his sister.
Except it wasn’t Haera.
His uncle was smiling down at him. “How interesting! Finley was right. I do so hope he lives for me to congratulate him on his keen observational skills regarding you, dear nephew.”
Worthy
“Not dead yet,” the voice cut through the sepulchral silence.
Finley froze. His heart was in his throat. Where the figure’s eyes should have been there were open pits, but a blue-white glow had started to build deep in the empty sockets similar to the color of the dagger.
The color of death. It’s… beautiful. And horrible. Beautiful and horrible.
The creature was looking at him. Seeing him. He had never been so aware of being gazed upon. It was truly unnerving. There was a hunger in those glowing eyes. Maybe it was just a hunger to see something new after so very long. Or maybe it was a hunger of a different kind. He was alive and it was… well, he wasn’t quite sure what it was.
“You came,” the creature whispered, a whiff of rot flowing over Finley’s face.
Finley wanted to flinch away from the hideousness of it. The dried yet somehow moist remnants of flesh. The bone–some old and withered while other parts were slick and yellow–poked through in places where the flesh and clothes had rotted away. How could it still be alive? Its organs were shriveled in the remnants of its chest cavity. How could it still be talking? No lungs, tongue, or voicebox. How could it still be thinking? The brain must be mush. Yet it was doing all of these things almost as well as him.
Magic. Death magic? Maybe. Necromancy? Huh.
“I… yes, I came,” Finley said carefully.
He didn’t want to make it angry or fearful or whatever else it could be so that it might do whatever else it could do. He had no weapons to use against it. And really, what could a sword or gun do against something that didn’t have blood? That didn’t need a brain to think?
And he wasn’t very strong. Despite this thing being just bone and sinew with some dried flesh, it had a literal death grip on the dagger and the book that he couldn’t break. So he needed to be exquisitely careful and use the one weapon and shield he had: his intelligence.
