Brett 14 | planet-helen-project

XIV.

Vastillion gasped, blood spilling between the hand he wrapped around his old neck. Jun cringed at the feeling of the blade cutting through the wrinkled flesh; and despite his hatred for the man, he was filled with regret. His eyes, twinkling with tears of disbelief seemed to lose focus; the life draining from them as the man took his time bleeding out on the luxurious carpet in the Forth-sitting room. Jun watched, eyes cold with ruthless intent. There would be no tears shed for this man, a man who had spent his life in the diligent service of his master.
Only to betray him.
“What did Majore offer you, Vastillion? What could have made you forsake the Duke? You have no honor, worm; and yet I still find myself pitying you.” Jun could see his words were registering, so he kicked the man in the side; sending blood out in a spurt. Before long the floor was a mess, the metallic smell ignited something deep inside Jun’s heart. His mouth began to water. “You’re dying, Arinold is dying as well. Choking on the glass you ground into his Ghielrout. And you knew he would continue to smoke, you knew he was addicted; knew that he wouldn’t offer a guest something he wouldn’t smoke as well.
“So Whyburr is dying too, isn’t he?” Jun thought back on all the times he had smoked with the Duke. He too had been caught in the trap of finely ground glass, manipulated by a million tiny factors he could not see; factors that he had no control over. And yet tonight, all the strings that tugged him this way and that were going to snap. Tonight was the night of the Nientia Ball, and guests were already beginning to arrive. Jun lifted the knife he had wrenched from the old man’s hand, and then used to slit his throat. The blood was light, watery and glimmering on the metal. The handle was fashioned like a boar, with an apple stuffed in its mouth.
“You’re the first to die tonight. The first of many.” The words came from somewhere far off, and Jun felt as if he were suddenly surrounded by the Woodsmen; their presence a comforting blanket around him. He was in control, but not for long. He shook his reverie, and stepped over the already dead Vastillion. He moved like a spirit, footfalls silent on the thick carpet.
He stepped out of the Forth-sitting room, and locked it behind him.
Jun hoped the killing would be done before the body was found. Either way, there would still be death tonight. The thought made Jun’s heart race. This was it, the culmination of all his efforts. He reflected on everything he had managed to weave together until this point; feeling like a spider stalking through the dark halls of the Manor. Servants scurried here and there, already outfitted for their specific roles; moving like wraiths in the darkness. Candles were blown, and the fading light of Tarna would only last a few more minutes before the fun began.
Dal Niente waited.
Jun erupted into the Solarium through a Servant’s passage, and caught the calm right before the storm. Servants stood like statues at the ready, one particular man held a silver tray piled with geometric pastries cut into little squares. The colors were arranged in a way to resemble the crests of the houses that would be in attendance tonight. Blue and Green, Red and white, Yellow, Orange, Purple; so many dyes that would have alone cost many fortunes in Harvesthome. Jun wondered if the man knew the cost of what he carried in a single gloved hand. So many had been massacred for the sake of fucking luxury. Jun was disgusted.
Tables lined the perimeter, leaving room for a beautifully polished marble floor on which to dance. The fountain had been filled with fish of all colors, some even jumped from the water in excitement. They grew frantic when he walked by, and he wondered if they expected to be fed. Or could they sense his intent. He made his way to the Main double doors and the two servants stepped aside as he turned the latch and slid outside.
The festivities hit him like a loud crash of chaos.
Music could be heard, drummed up from the players hiding in the shrubbery. Guests, dimly lit by the ghoulish lanterns strung throughout the Forward-court looked like a menagerie of misshapen creatures. Lights flickered in the softly increasing wind, sending shadows off into the far reaches of the court. Immediately Jun was intercepted by two men, clad in black-chainmail and matching half-helms. He felt trapped between the oak double doors and the guards, and for a moment his instincts told him to make a run for it. He took a deep breath and calmed himself.
“You startled me.”
“That would be my Ward, you buffoons.” Arinold placed a white glove between the thugs and they stepped aside quickly, avoiding his touch. “Where have you been?” The man made an impressive sight in his aviary attire: the Silver Swan. “You missed the fireshow, an intricate and rather expensive show shipped all the way from Waterchase. Quite a spectacle when combined with Chalton Rentis there; do you like my statue, Hal?” The Duke moved to the front of his servant entourage, and Jun noticed just how many guards were posted throughout the court. A small bead of sweat dripped down his neck.
Dozens.
“I don’t enjoy it, but it does have a powerful presence that seemed appropriate for the occasion.”
The Duke cackled, slapping Jun on the back in a hearty manner before breaking out into a coughing fit. The Servants jumped to his aid, but he waved them all off; lower his glove from his mouth, now stained red with blood. He was getting worse. “Ah, Hallen. A truly well crafted response! Snide yet sophisticated, I am truly proud of my accomplishments on you. To think that you were a barbarous pain in the ass not two weeks past…To think how far you have come. E-hem!” He cleared his throat and removed his blood stained glove, handing it to a servant who supplied a new one.
“Everything is prepared for the night.”
“Bah, nothing is prepared. The night will be a disaster, as every Nientia Ball has been in the past. I hope you are ready, a couple hours from now and you’ll be beyond the state of remembering anything.” The gaggle of Nobles approached in earnest now, masked faces staring up at Chalton Rentis as they approached the steps where the Duke waited with his entourage. “Has Vastillion finished drafting the will?” Jun swallowed hard, remembering the struggling butler dying.
“No. I made certain he did not.” There was a long pause. The Duke didn’t turn to him, instead he looked out over the crowd in reverence.
“Thank you, Hal. Truly. I should have listened sooner. It was hard for me to believe, when you told me Vastillion was the source behind Majore’s success. I thought you paranoid, when in truth you were wise.” The man glanced at him through the side of his mask and Jun notices the corner of his mouth curl up. “I should have trusted in you sooner.” A twinge of regret filled his voice.
“Vastillion he wrote himself as your beneficiary. In every field.” Jun held out the parchment, but the Duke made no motion to take it. Jun took the hint and slipped it back into his pocket. “He had plans of having you killed tonight.”
“No.” The word was cold, sharp. “He has been killing me for days now. Poisoning my drug. Don’t play a fool, Hal. You’ve noticed my state. It gets worse with each cough, a practice my body has seem to grow fond of as of recent.” He spread his wings as if planning to take flight, and sighed audibly. “I am dying, Hal.” The silence was pocketed with hushed whispers, music spilling from reeds and strings and winds. Even a small drum followed beat with the celebratory melody, yet inside Jun roiled.
“I know.” And despite his passion, the taste of blood in his mouth; Jun couldn’t help but pity this man. The man who had trusted him as his Ward, gave him wealth and class and education. The Duke didn’t even glance his way.
“I suspected as much.” The words were hollow, there was no subtext; no inflection to betray a sense of disgust or regret. They were just words, spoken to calm one’s nerves before the inevitability of passing. Jun studied the man, and felt the pride radiating from the other’s costume. If only things had been different, perhaps they would have even been friends. Jun grudgingly admired the other, wondering how a man could face his death with such wild abandon. “I don’t suspect to survive until morning.”
Jun just stared in disbelief.
“Now is a bad time, but it is also as good as any.” Arinold turned to Jun and gave him a wry smile. “You are my Ward, and as such, the heir to my great fortunes. I have no family, no friends, none I could trust with everything I have kept secret until this very moment.” Jun could hear the man’s voice breaking, but something seemed out of place. It was as if the man was fighting a bout of laughter. “You see, I had planned things for you. I had schemed to build you into a legacy that would make me immortal for all eternity as the most influential of Solstice’s finest!” The Nobles were drawing closer now; soon they would be in earshot; so the Duke leaned closer to Jun. His voice fell to a hushed whisper.
“But there was a snag in my plan.” A chuckle escaped his lips, and Jun could hear the blood in the other’s lungs bubbling. “Time. I ran out. So I decided not to seek immortality, what a feeble purchase anyway. You sit on the precipice of memory, leaning so far out into the void that all it takes is a second-wind historian to flick his quill and off you go. Everything you worked for dead.
“So I decided instead to take the humorous route.” His thin voice trailed off, Jun could smell the metallic belch of blood. “This world is cruel, but I have not broken under its burden. You said to Vastillion that he was a slave to society once upon a time. Rest his soul, he was. I WILL NOT BE.” The Duke leaned even closer, and his unnatural white teeth were pink with blood.
“I have no fortune. Tonight, when I die, I will be leaving you with the debt of ten-thousand men! So you see? The joke is on you after all. You and that friend of yours, Majore Jeleps; who will soon be sharing the blame for the poverty I will be cursing this town with upon my death.
“If I can’t live forever, then I will bring everyone down with me.”
And then he straightened out and addressed the masses.
Jun just smiled wide. The Duke had outsmarted him, naming his Ward then forcing the blame of the collapsed economy on him. It would be Harvesthome’s fault, again. Jun would be framed as the Prime-Justice, and the people would look to him as an explanation. On the eve of Nientia, a complete stranger would emerge as the wealthiest man of Solstice, only to discover that he owed his fortune to a thousand salivating monsters.
The Harvesters would be exiled; worse, they would be weeded out and destroyed. It’s very likely that we will not see them until we can establish trade again. The Duke had known the danger Solstice was in, yet he continued to throw his fortune away. He was having the last laugh, a colossal fuck-you to the entire region of Olmeer; spreading a plague of famine and death for years, possibly generations.
And Jun just stood there smiling. What else could he do? Don’t get involved in their games Jun, you’ll end up a pawn. And then when your usefulness is through, you’ll end up dead. He had been a fool to trust the Duke; and an even bigger fool to pity the man. Yet Jun wasn’t upset. His emotions held in check, because inside he knew something that Arinold did not.
It didn’t matter at all. Not one bit.
They would all end up dead by the end of the night anyway.
Time would never remember Arinold’s name, but Harver Jun.
That was a name that would last forever.
The Duke gave his speech of lies and deceit, still-born hopes and already broken promises. How they would rise up from their recession and cease control of Olmeer’s once bountiful harvest. He promised riches, and wealth, and offered a glimpse at a future Jun knew would never come. He weaved his speech into a story, and spread a blanket of fear over his audience. They watched, completely enraptured by his appearance and portrayal of Chalton Rentis; the monster of Helen. A man so wicked he sought immortality through the dark-magics of the world over. He became so corrupt, that the Lordlings of Death granted him the power to reign over the living. His influence spread like a plague that corrupted the healthy, and caused the meek to grow rage-full. He killed the innocent, sacrificed the helpless, and shattered the civilizations of the world.
Arinold told the story with such a presence, that he seemed to transform before everyone’s eyes. Gasps could be heard from the crowd of creatures, whose characteristics wavered in the darkness of approaching night. Jun watched the faces of the nobles, seeing the flashes of teeth, the ripples of flesh, and the folds of cloth and fur that made humans seem more animal than ever. Inside, something burned, and Jun hungered to release it. He found his shoulders tense, his arms and fists clenched; and his mouth started to water. Enough, he thought again and again; wishing the speeches were done, and the feast would begin. The feast, the very thought gave him chills, and his ever fiber ached to lash out against the imbeciles before him.
For a moment he almost lost his composure. Some feral instinct threatened to throw him into a shadowed corner of his head. A corner he had hidden deep inside himself years ago. He swallowed hard, and forced his emotions under control. The feast. That was when he would enact his plans, that was the catalyst he had searched for. The Nobles would be dumb with drink and drug, their stomachs full; and minds heavy with sloth and gluttony. It would be easiest then, to strike and slaughter. Anxiousness clutched his spine, he felt his stomach flip in anticipation. Fear and hunger and lust and sheer joy pounded through his veins.
And ever word of the Duke’s speech was lost to him.
But when it ended, he was the first to open the doors into the Solarium. Beyond he saw the eeriely illuminated Hall that stretched on forever in the shadows. Tables and chairs and servants filled each nook; yet there was place to move and more. Musicians stood ready in the balconies, actors and Rentis-brood hid in the cracks; the glow of eyes present in the mass of burning glass-candles. Jun stepped through quickly and looked to each corner and crevice, meeting the eyes of each appointed player. A smile snuck to his mouth, and twisted into a snarl, the moment fleeing as fast as it came. He only had half a second.
“After the feast, wait for my signal.” His voice filled the solarium, and many responded with a shallow nod. There were those who stared on in confusion, but tonight had been a confusing night and they would not think twice about his words. They were the ones that Jun had not told of his plans; those that would be dead within the next hour. He stepped into the room and spun on his heel, his half-cloak twirled around his torso in a lush bloom of dark green. There was a moment of nothing, then the Duke stepped through the doors; followed by guards and guest.
Whyburr Steevs was at his side, a relaxed hand draped over the hilt of his sword. Jun noticed the look in his eyes, the ever-present mix of suspicion and challenge. Coie Hespen was there, Norka Mehis, Helopen Jiul, Ajenda Menor and both his fat sons, Tolin Farfield, Respe Hiespe; and all the rest. Their names came in flashes to Jun’s mind; his endless study of their faces and names was well spent. He greeted them all appropriately; switching hands from male to female, offering a bow, tilting his head just so. For an eternity he stood in the center of the room, and welcomed the guests with the Duke by his side. They chatted briefly with some, offered condolences to others, and even laughed lightly at the jibes others offered.
And Jun did the dance with perfect practice.
When the last guest had been greeted, the two turned to each other and smiled. The Duke’s thin lips spreading thinner still. “Not bad, Hal. You were born for this sort of thing.” In a swish of white and purple silk he was out; swooping through the crowd like an elegant bird.. Perhaps he was born for this. Perhaps this was what leading was all about; convincing others you were better than them by being better at doing the predetermined steps. By making your own steps along the way.
If that was the case, than Jun was ready to lead. He would make all the steps straight, and annihilate anyone would strayed from his path. He would force Justice on the wicked, and even the social playing-ground. Soon the common man and the noble would eat at the same table, use the same words, and wear the same clothes. And everyone would be treated equal. Until then, there was the never-ending feast of thematic frivolities. Obelisks were rolled out, and they rose from their tables like wicks from big candles, drawing the flies like shit. The mouth piece was passed from person to person, being wiped after each puff by a servant dressed to be a statue. Smoke filled the room quickly, twisting this way and that in a languid motion of hallucinogenic delight.
There were so many smokers, that Jun didn’t notice the drinkers until they were well sauced. Some socialites, with their masks still on, tried to intake as much poison as their stomach could possibly muster. There was Moonvine, ale, beer, and barley malt slicked across the floor by the stations in which they chugged. Jun was appalled, reminded off the first time he saw pigs at the slop; only these swine weren’t cute. They were fat and greedy and gorging so ferociously that Jun had difficulty remembered they were Nobles at all. They all appeared to be big children, fighting for the next swig and puff; animals fighting for the next tear of the bone. Their masks only sharpened the image.
“Pleasant isn’t it? So wound in their need for escape, that they lose control of themselves entirely. Yes my boy, this will be a night to remember; the last night like this for many nights to come.” The Duke called above the crowd, and despite the obvious offense many cheered. Even the drunks of Harvesthome were more civilized in their revelry. Jun took the moment to recount the nobles, and found that amidst the chaos of music and chatting, and clashing of glass he ended up short. Seventy-two. Seventy-two nobles present. Seventy-four invited, meant two absent. Jun didn’t doubt the gossip would already be spreading, Taena Bluin and his wife Fajalia. Social ‘runner-ups’, so to say, for the newest addition to Solstice’s Finest; the couple.
Jun knew their absence would be noted, and wondered how they could afford to not be here.
He also wondered who had taken their place, since the numbers in the Forward-Court had been one hundred and fifty-five people in total. Which Jun knew specifically because he signed the invitations himself. He could recount, but it was pointless; with the mass becoming intoxicated by the moment he had to chance of getting an accurate figure.
Besides, what did it really matter? Two people were here that were not invited. For some reasons that alarmed Jun, but then he was whisked away for a toast. One preceded another; some Ghielrout preceded the red-leaf, which preceded the filofallo. On and on it went, the precarious dance he managed kept him sober for the first hour; but when Whyburr Steevs thrust a heavy goblet into his hand he knew his sobriety was coming to an end.
“Drink.” One hand on the sword. Jun looked the other in the eye, considering his options. Refusal could spell a duel, a blemish on the man’s honor of being rejected a gift. So Jun clasped the goblet and gave Steevs the widest grin he could manage.
“To our good health.” Jun proffered.
“May it last the night.” Whyburr responded, and everyone cheered and chugged.
The first mug calmed his nerves. The second dimmed his senses, the third and forth only soured his spirit. But the fifth through tenth were the ones that banished his inhibitions. He felt himself teetering on the brink of never remembering, wrapping his arms around Socialites and stealing kisses from daughters who looked more like harpies than humans. But the nobles were in good spirits, and the spirits were in full flow. Jun hadn’t realized how much time had passed, how much ale he had drank, or how many songs he had danced to, until the last light of Tarna suddenly went out.
The room fell into complete darkness, an affect added by the timely snuffing of artificial light.
A moment later playful screams filled the room, the true horror of Dal Niente masked behind inebriation. Jun stood perfectly still, terror gripped his bones for another reason. In that moment he realized he was possibly way too sauced to stage a successful revolt, not to mention being in the area of the Ghielrout smoke was starting to seriously affect him. A chuckled burped from his lips, followed by a laugh of genuine nervous concern. “Fuck.” He could lose everything, all because he couldn’t say no to a drink. He took a deep breath, and steadied himself; trying to shake his intoxication. It was now or never, and as the room quieted down around him; he fought to focus on his goal.
He opened his mouth to shout, to call all his plans into action with a single word.
BAM.
The door crashed open then, and just beyond Jun saw a figure silhouetted in the darkness.
Pop. And from behind the figure was lit. It cast a shadow deep into the solarium, extremities covering each of the Nobles. Jun blinked, but the image was gone; lost in the darkness. It fled from his rational mind as quickly as it shifted through his intoxication, unable to be the shape of anything natural.
Pop. Screams could be heard. Pop. Light flashed through the windows from the Forward-Court, and the silhouette flickered with the light. The Pops came in a rush, and the room watched on in frozen surprise. The figure remained still, its form reaching like tendrils into the space around it. Long moments flashed, and the pops heard from outside grew brighter; louder. The screams became more apparent, screams of shock, fear, disbelief, and even death. The Nobles were intoxicated to the last man, their inebriated state left them in an expectant trance.
But just when Jun had determined what the shape was, the Pops ceased and the room was plunged into darkness. A collective breath was held, even in Jun’s sudden sobriety he had doubts of the reality of the situation. Was this just another hallucination? Was this a nightmare playing before him; another ghost to add to the long list of those dead that he was responsible for? His heart hammered, and that was the only true way he knew that time was still passing. The silence filled the darkness like a coating; preserving the freshness of the tension. Dal Niente had crashed the party, and replaced the revelry with horror. Jun’s hairs stood on his neck, his skin grew warm suddenly and he was filled with a surge of the most unsettling sensation of his life. Anger flushed through him in a hot blast and hunger made his mouth water.
Pop.
The shape was gone, but only from its original spot.
Another pop revealed that it had stepped into the room; closer to them.
Chaos broke the silence.
Rentis-sphere was unleashed in the form of a woman, long hair streamed around her head. The air cracked around her head that flickered with the distant popping explosions from the Forward-Court. Her face was gone, the features a sheer white canvas that broke into a throng of antlers erupting from the top of her head. Her shape shifted with each pop, her movements appeared to be a series of broken jagged lunges; too fast to be real. A white dress, simple in contrast to those she moved through hung from her shoulders like the sheer existence of a spirit. Jun doubted she even truly existed.
Until he saw it.
A scythe, raised high above her head in one muscled arm.
The next instant was darkness, a cry, a flash, and a spray of blood. The Noble was dead, blood splattered on the one’s standing around him. There was a moment of confusion, the woman in white snapped her head; and in a flash there was another swipe. Blood sprayed in an upward arch, and another body fell. The cadence of Pops grew louder, and the woman’s head snapped to another victim.
It wasn’t until she fell two more, that people began to realize what was happening.
Jun had started moving the instant he saw her.
He pushed one body this way, squeezed between two onlookers, reached with his right hand, and moved his lips close to the ears of the man. “Don’t be surprised.” Jun pulled the blade from his boot.
And slid it through the back of Whyburr Steevs without a single thought.
The duelist gasped, one moment stunned, the next breathing in the warm iron of metal. Jun felt his hot blood drooling out of the wound; the watery gasp for air told him he had stuck a lung. A lucky shot in the dark, but a fatal one nonetheless. “Die Whyburr. Die knowing that your life was meaningless. That years spent dueling were for naught.” Jun smiled, and pushed the blade up to the hilt; it slid with little resistance. “I never had a chance against you in a fair fight. But life’s not fair. And only the one willing to break the rules survive to make new ones.”
He twisted the blade with a grunt; it held fast, and fell with the body in a heap.
Jun felt his nerves relax, and a huge pressure lift from his shoulders. One of the five men that could easily had him killed was now dead. The realization was a brief respite in the carnage. A lady tripped backward over Whybur’s body, and got tramped by the corpse of a fat man clutching his throat. There was a pop so loud, everything was silent for a moment after. A flash filled the room in a single frightening picture tableau before darkness and silence reined.
The crash rivaled the Kingwood’s eruption. Jun felt a blast of air, and the shrapnel of glass. The entire chandelier had fallen; likely crushing a dozen people, and shattering into those it missed. The screams finally came through the ringing in Jun’s ears, but it was so far muffled that he wasn’t sure he heard anything at all. His thick cloak, the one he had worn as a Justice, was layered with powdery white splinters. He laughed, his body filled with an ironic euphoria. The cloak had likely saved him, its whitetree completely covered. He stood and took in the scene, a dim black-light of torches grew; Jun stood tall and pulled Whybur’s sword with him. The ring of metal was fuzzy in his ears, but his eyes were clear; and rested on the figure that stood tall before the twisted metal frame. Its face, if it could be called that, was turned toward him; the elegant dress that had covered its body was in shreds. There was power in its posture, a certain familiarity that pulled at Jun’s psyche; yet blood poured from the places shards of glass had hit her. It stood for just a moment, and then it moved toward him with a march that was as deliberate as it probably felt to the Nobles jammed in around him.
He turned on a man he recognized, the arch of his blade cutting deep through the velvet folds of his bizarre suit. Juris Jhopan, his mask slid off; his stunned eyes watched his arms try to hold his insides together before collapsing. The blood glinted dully on the blade, and he thrust it through a servant he recognized as one of Arinold’s. The man had dropped his tray and started to dig for a long-knife he thought he had concealed so cleverly. His wide eyes were so unremarkable, and Jun recognized him as the Duke’s Smokesman.
Arinold had taken precautions. Jun pulled the blade free of the man, and drew his knife with the off hand. A man turned toward him, a Noble with his blade drawn; the tip of his blade swayed in intoxication. Jun smacked it away with his guard, and stepped in close; knife jutting from the others chest. The man inhaled one last time, as Jun back handed a fleeing Noble with the tip of Whybur’s blade. The metal half sliced, half ‘thwacked’ the form to the floor.
It didn’t move.
Then the fat man was on him. A frenzied rage of fear and anger lashed out from the man’s faded eyes. Then there was a moment before the blow, and Jun managed to get his blade up just in time to catch the strike of steel. Clak, clak, clak; the blow came one and again, over and over. Jun was forced to one knee under the assault of the man’s strength and girth. The man was roaring saliva drooled from his mouth; his mask was a hound. Clak, clak, cla-
Jun punctured the next swing with a punch of his knife.
Clack. Thump. Clack. Thump. Jun stabbed again. The blows slowed after the third stab, but Jun’s arm throbbed under the pressure. When the fat man fell backward, his back propped against a table that had turned over. Jun let his blade drop, his arm weak from the drunkard’s assault.
And that’s when he got smashed. When he came to a second later, he had some harpy straddling him; her fists slammed against his chest. “No! No! I will not be some Widow!” She shrieked, whaling punches down of Jun’s stunned head. But as his thoughts cleared, he wondered what she had hit him with. She was pathetically weak, her thin wrists slapped against him in a tantrum. She was crying hysterical. “I won’t be some Destitute!” Jun caught her wrist, and broke it in two hands. She didn’t register the pain at first, and continued to slap with her broken wrist.
So he grabbed her bicep and pulled her off of him in a rush, smashing her head against the ground. He was standing again, his right hand dragged the sword in exhaustion. She didn’t move; the hound’s wife, now he recognized her. Jun stepped on the widow’s neck, and glanced up just in time. In a blink of the eye, it was there. The blank white mask, the impressive rack of antlers jutting from the back of her head. The strong grip that pried open his off-hand; snatched his knife, and lifted it to his shaking throat.
Jun could see the shadows where the eyes should be, the creature just stared into him. He was paralyzed in fear, feeling the press of the blade to his throat. But he kept his foot pressed down, the scrambling broken form of Telyn Ford dying under him. He stared into the mask, the silence struck in again; but Jun knew there was only from his total focus. Thoughts of Teyln Ford filled him, and moments of her life flashed before his eyes. He watched on, afraid to even think less the blade cut. Slowly, with the drawn out agony of guilt she fought less. Jun could focus on nothing else but her struggles; hating her very soul, but still knowingly killing a living thing. He continued to press his heal, choking off her life.
And thinking over and over again, Please die. Please just die. The thought was so powerful, so ironic, that he found it bleeding into his other situation. How easy would it be to bleed to death right now? Why not hope for the death, welcome it? He smiled, imagining this was to be his last moment. Please just die.
“Speak.” His suspicions were confirmed in one word.
“Sana.”
There was a pause, a long rift in time that Jun was certain he was dead. It had been the wrong thing to say, the face of the mask drew so close that Jun feel its closeness. But the shadows only darkened, and he still could not see into the mask. It froze, inches from his face; and he let himself believe for a moment that he was glaring into the eyes of Chalton Rentis reincarnate.
The blade didn’t lower. Jun wondered if this was a bad sign. Telyn, the tile makers young wife, the one who had struggled all through adolescence to woo a Solstice Upper man into raising her families strata through marriage; she died under the crush of his heel. He sighed, his heart wrenching, his hunger sating. He let his thoughts relax, the memories from her life stopped flashing; with a single image fading from his memory. She was dead the thoughts fled his mind, he tried to remember what he had seen; but found only the ghosts of his past.
“You know me, Sana.”
“Yes. But do you know yourself?” He looked into the mask, his eyes betraying confusion. “Have you lost yourself, Jun? Have you forgotten who you are, who you were? You’ve changed. Things have changed.” The words were sharp, and snapped at him like teeth. “Have you thrown away everything he had planned for, everything we had Died for?!” Her voice was a growl, and he only smiled. He didn’t have time for this game.
“If you truly believe me to have betrayed you and our cause, then kill me. Now.”
She didn’t move an inch. In his periphery, something moved.
The next moment, the scythe was slamming down into the tile maker’s chest. The man was killed instantly, and Jun had managed to step back; pulling away in the moment of distraction. Sana glared up at him and froze. He just stared at her, standing before him like a monster. She just laughed, straitening herself. Her dress largely covered her, but Jun found his eyes catching glimpsed of her skin through the tatters. Everywhere he looked; there was a stream of blood.
He couldn’t imagine how she was still standing.
“Bastard. If we survive this, I am going to fucking castrate you.” Sana was laughing, giddy like a child. Jun couldn’t help but smile, his shoulders were lifted of a terrible weight. One moment he knew he was dead, the next he felt invincible again.
“I will explain later.” Jun cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed as loud as he possibly could. “HARVESTHOME.” His shout carried on through the servant’s quarters, reverberated in the newly cleared dome above them. The room had emptied, the Nobles fleeing deeper into the mansion. Deeper into the horrors that Jun had lying in wait for them. His voice echoed back to him, and then he heard a roar, a call to arms. The response brought a smile to his face.
“You’ve been busy.” Sana laughed, pulling the incredible mantle off her head. Jun looked onto her face and saw the green glow of her eyes. Her face was lit up, her smile wide and mischievous. Jun knew it to also be hungry, a thirst for death and revenge. He was both frightened and relieved at once, Sana Lanson was just what he needed right now.
“You have no idea,” he drew the sword from the ground and glanced around at the bodies. His subconscious named the Nobles he recognized. People he had studied, some he had even met. Strewn about the room. Figures were soon pouring in, leaping nimbly over fallen bodies; so stopped to plunge a dagger here and there. Jun was even surprised to hear a cry in the darkness.
“Widows, Nor united them. Crazy bitches, every last one of us.”
“Us?”
“That’s right. They call me the White Widow.”
“Didn’t know you were married.”
“I’m married to our cause.”
“And so you say it has died?” There was a long pause at this, and Jun felt a different tension grow. This was hardly the time, but for once Jun needed an answer. He was done playing games, but he needed to know. Was this even worth it? The words had come easy, Sana just stared at him; blood stained her shoulders. He watched as she tore off her shredded dress, leaving the bloody mess of her body covered in the wrappings of undergarment.
“For a while.” Her response was quiet, “I thought it had, yes.” It was apologetic. She ran her hands over a few of the larger gashes, but didn’t even flinch when he fingers came away covered in blood. “You can stop staring at me Jun, it’s impossible to kill in a dress.”
He stretched out his arm, smiling viciously. “I can live with that.”