“Your mother’s death pained me more than you know,”Her father said, even though his voice remained calm she could feel the sadness rolling off him.“But the balance must be maintained, Zaharis, or as you know him, Legolas, death only leads to my own. We are all bound in this way.”
“Shut up!” Lanias yelled, bringing her knife to his throat. Breathing through her nose she forced herself to ignore the pain in her arms. “That’s just another excuse, another reason for you to do nothing. To continue doing nothing.”
“It may seem that way, but your actions have changed that. The door between here and there has opened.”He gently grabbed her arm.
“Shut up!” she yelled again, pressing the knife deeper. “Enough talking.”
“You are angry, I met another like you before.”He said, a slight smile came to his lips.“I have watched you grow, and at times I feared for you. Other times I fought going to you, but now I wish time was not so cruel. You opened the door, and they now know our blood is alive in those who should not have it.”
The sound of thunder rumbled above, and her father looked up.
“They have come to wipe out every trace of our blood on this earth.”
“Stop talking,” Lanias yelled only to fall back when her father suddenly pulled her hand down. She held back a cry of pain.
This time he spoke with his mouth. “There are others like you out there in the world. Children that carry both human and Surrem blood. Tainted with the volatile line that cannot exist here on this earth. You don’t understand what you’ve done by opening the gate for Zaharis.” Her father spoke as if she hadn’t just tried to kill him. “I hid that gift in you, when you were born. Zaharis killed your mother attempting to obtain it but he failed. That is why I sent you away.”
She bit her lips glaring at him, “And what? I’m just supposed to believe this. How convenient it is that everything I’ve fucking been through is because you were just trying to protect me. That definitely makes everything better,” she snidely finished.
“Yes,” he said.
Lanias felt a wealth of emotion she didn’t want to analyze one bit. She wanted to kill him and start her life over completely guilt free from the things her existence had stolen from her sister. “Protecting you and those like you,” he continued.
“Eris,” a voice called from above. Lanias shivered at the empty emotion delivered and looked up.
Hovering overhead was the stranger who’d attacked her earlier.
Her father took a protective stance blocking her.
“You insist on protecting these abominations.” The entity said as it descended, the eyes were cold. “The door has been opened by a tainted being.” It moved its eyes to Lanias. “You must allow us to purge the world of them. We can only exist as designed by those who reign above or those who exist below, and that is all.”
Lanias felt like her world was spinning. Nothing was making sense.
“Her blood is not tainted Icarus; the beings of this world deserve to live,” her father argued without emotion.
“You ignore the commands,” Icarus said, it’s tone sad. “Those before were dealt with, their descendants surviving only by chance, but these new aberrations must be destroyed.”
“I will not allow it.” Her father said, the glow from his eyes dripping along his skin as he grew brighter. “Icarus, you’ve become blinded by duty, and I know I cannot convince you to change your mind. I can only protect those who were born without choice.”
“Wait,” Lanias cried out as he turned so his back was to Icarus and grabbed her up by her arms. “What?”
“Listen to me. The true ones have returned to kill those like you. They fear you and the volatile blood you carry. You must find the others and protect them, as I’ve tried to protect you.”
Grasping at his hands in confusion, Lanias tried to hold onto him.
“Wait, wait. Stop. This isn’t right,” she screamed as he moved her over the edge of the high building. Wrapped in white light, she couldn’t control her body. “Let me go!”
Eris leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead, drawing back he gave her a fatherly smile. His hands opened and he dropped her.
Lanias released a terrified scream as she fell staring upwards in horror.
Her father’s face wore a smile, as a hand pierced right through his chest.
“I’ve grown weak,” her father mouthed.
He turned around and grabbed Icarus by the shoulders and locked in combat they dissolved upward into the sky.
Lanias watched as the streak of light went higher and higher, the dark clouds swallowing them whole. She couldn’t move or scream, she could only silently watch as the man she’d just met, the father she’d just found disappeared from in front of her.
